Feeling unsafe at the local bar? Ask for the 'Island shot'

The P.E.I. Rape and Sexual Assault Centre has launched a new campaign to help Islanders feel safer when going out for a drink with friends.

Posters will be going up in bars around the province advertising the "Island shot," which isa new way to ask bar and restaurant stafffor help if you feel a situation could lead to trouble.

You can order the "Island shot" three ways: "Neat" meansyou will get an escort to your car, "on the rocks" means acab will be called for you, and "with lime" indicates police should be called to intervene.

Candace Hagen, sexual violence prevention and public education coordinator with the centre,will be contacting licensed establishments to ask if they will put theposters in their washrooms.

Staff at each bar and restaurant will have to undergo training before they receivetheir posters.The campaign is partly in response to news of the prevalence of spiking drinks in Island bars.

KinleyDowling, a P.E.I. musician and advocate for sexual assault victims, is supporting the campaign. Dowling said she has heard from dozens more women sinceshe took drink-spiking complaints from 17 womento policelast June.

"I just want P.E.I. to be a safer place where you don't have to be worried when you go out with some friends to a bar," she said.

"To know that your community and the people around you have your back."

The posters will be going up in all washrooms, men's included, said Hagen. She noted one in six men are victims of sexual assault.

"We really just want to, also, shift the conversation that [this is] a problem that is managed and dealt [with] by women," she said.

Hagen and Kinley are also hopeful the posters could act as a deterrent.

P.E.I. women speak out over police response to alleged drugging incidents

3 years ago

Duration 2:15

Multiple women in P.E.I. say they were left feeling dejected and humiliated by Charlottetown Police Services for reporting alleged drink-spiking incidents. A CBC News investigation found police decided against investigating 17 reports of drink spiking, many of them from 2010 and 2011.