Attitude of Police Authority
Caves exist almost everywhere east of Vancouver but of course they cannot sustain their operations without any negotiation with police authority. Then what kind of attitude does police have toward those caves? Indeed, police never fail to keep their bird eyes on them but, oddly enough, each town has a different level of tolerance and stringency. In some cases, it even appears that police offer them protection and facilitate their activities. Strange phenomenon.
According to our observations, Revelstoke currently has two devil caves owned by Shinjō and Baba. They used to have rough Japanese labourers who drank endlessly without paying their charges and, in worst cases, wielded knives and axes. After sending requests to police, these caves now have an ex-police security who wears a badge and guards them every day. Due to this, outsider Japanese are prohibited from stepping into the caves, or in fact, they cannot even wander around that neighbourhood without getting an earful from the badged man who scrutinizes what they are there for and tells them this is not a place for them to visit. The security’s house and caves are very close to each other and they even installed a bell so that devils are able to call the security when trouble occurs.
Therefore, those outsiders who have business with caves cannot approach there unless they request police chief for escort.
To have this guard, the two caves together pay police 70 dollars each month. This is something like police-on-request. The police chief in Revelstoke generally does not favor the presence of the caves. However, without them the city would have more conflicts for police officers to deal with and therefore, he says, they tolerate the presence of the caves in one district and in some situations give them protection. The policy against the cave varies depending on the opinion of the local authority and these opinions reflect each town’s situation. If a town has many rough labourers and often produces criminals, it tends to end up accepting caves. By tolerating them it prevents crime from spreading out.
In every city the fines the caves often pay supply part of the public financial resources. Cave owners do not pay fines by submitting the blue paper to the police, but in most cities it is more like paying business tax or something and it is just fine if they simply give whatever the amount defined by the given city. However, all cities are very strict about regulating pimps.
In Revelstoke, the fine is 25 dollars a year. Very little, indeed.