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Ferry passenger banned for uttering gun threat

An angry ferry traveller who threatened an employee at the Horseshoe Bay terminal that he was going to get a gun and come back with it has been banned from BC Ferries for a year.
Horseshoe Bay ferry

An angry ferry traveller who threatened an employee at the Horseshoe Bay terminal that he was going to get a gun and come back with it has been banned from BC Ferries for a year.

The unhappy would-be passenger made the threat at the West Vancouver terminal Oct. 17, according to BC Ferries. “The customer was unhappy and upset,” said Mark Collins, BC Ferries president. No gun was actually produced but the threat was serious enough for the ferry corporation to call police, said Collins.

The person who threatened to come back with a gun is one of seven people handed one-year bans over the past two weeks alone, said Collins.

Another passenger was banned after leaving their lane and driving aggressively towards a ferry worker in the Langdale terminal lot on the morning of Oct. 15, forcing the worker to jump out of the way.

On Oct. 22, another passenger assaulted a ferry employee on board the Coastal Celebration, one of the ferries that runs between Swartz Bay north of Victoria and Tsawwassen, according to the ferry corporation.

While most passengers are polite, there are some who let their anger get the better of them, said Collins. That kind of behaviour “tends to spike up a little bit around busy weekends,” said Collins, adding that BC Ferries has a “zero tolerance policy” for people who are abusive or threatening to staff.