CALGARY (CP) -- Downtown jewelry store owner Suli Issik has a simple plan if protesters at this month's Group of Eight summit in nearby Kananaskis, Alta., start trashing retail shops.
"I will collect all my jewelry, pack everything and lock it in my vault, then go home," Issik said. "If you have massive wackos and Greenpeace and bluepeace people out there, what do you want me to do?
"It would be cheaper for me to shut it down for two days, lock my stuff in my vaults, than to buy extra insurance."
With police busy securing Calgary streets for the June 26-27 summit of the world's eight top industrialized leaders, Issik and 1,600 other downtown business owners are making plans to protect their livelihoods.
Even though the summit is about 100 kilometres west of Calgary, police are gearing up for thousands of activists to take their protests to the city's downtown streets.
Most business owners are adamant that they want to keep their stores and offices open during the summit, saying to close shop would be a victory for activists.
To stay open, many businesses -- particularly large corporations and office building owners -- have for months been making elaborate multimillion-dollar plans to beef up security.
"Most corporations have a large capital budget for G-8 security," said former RCMP officer Rick Phelan, a senior investigator with Bison Security Group.
"They want to know, do we need fencing? What do we do if tear gas is deployed on the street? At what point do we evacuate the building? How do we do that, and what part of the property represents a target?"
Officials from Calgary's Emergency Medical Services have been informing downtown businesses how to minimize risks to the 120,000 Calgarians working in the city's core.
"It's an issue of discussing and planning and having some clearly defined protocols and communication procedures in place," said emergency medical spokesman Mike Plato. "Pre-planning is really huge."
Calgary police have scheduled a meeting Tuesday with downtown retailers to talk about prudent security measures during the summit.
Many downtown office employees are already practising emergency evacuation drills, with key people on each floor given specific responsibilities, Plato said.
Office employees are also getting new swipe cards and photo identification to get into their buildings, many of which will have extra uniformed security guards at the front doors.
If a large protest snaking through the streets comes within two blocks of large office buildings, a "lockdown" will occur. At that point, no one will be able to enter or leave a building.
"If protesters get gassed, they are going to seek refuge wherever they can find it," said Bill Partridge, executive vice-president of the Building Owners and Managers Association. "And those folks won't be let into the buildings."
Calgary police are warning businesses there's a good chance officers will fire tear gas at any rowdy protesters. About 1,700 canisters of the painful, irritable gas were released at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City last year, forcing buildings to lock down for hours.
"The effects are annoying," said Calgary police Insp. Al Redford, an official G-8 spokesman. "People with pre-existing medical conditions should call 9-1-1."
If tear gas is deployed, office buildings are to shut down air-intake systems so the chemical doesn't infiltrate every floor. To do that, some companies are changing their old systems.
"There's one company that's doing a $1.5-million upgrade," Phelan said. "You have to have a one-button shutdown and maybe an alternate air source and evacuation routes and decontamination stations."
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