Toronto police are holding public meetings to gauge reaction to plans to install surveillance cameras in three high-risk neighbourhoods across the city, but some business owners are impatient for the project to begin.

"We're afraid that by the time it gets to our area it will be too late," says Jeff Gillan of the Corso Italia Business Improvement Association, representing hundreds of business owners along St. Clair Avenue West. 

Gillan, who attended a meeting between the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas and police on Tuesday, says business owners along St. Clair want the police cameras installed as soon as possible and are even willing to pay for them.

His area is not one of the three where police hope to install closed-circuit television cameras with $2 million from the province.

Police plan to place 15 cameras in neighbourhoods in Scarborough, North York and the downtown Entertainment District by the end of April.

The police force has experimented with surveillance cameras in the past, most recently with the three-week installation of three cameras at Yonge Street over the Christmas holidays. One camera captured footage of a 15-year-old boy being shot in the leg that police are using to investigate the incident.

Yonge Street business owners have pushed for cameras to try to bring customers back to the shopping district after sales plummeted following the area shooting of 15-year-old Jane Creba.

Consultations an attempt to keep 'good face': critic

Supt. Jeff McGuire, who was at Tuesday's meeting, says Toronto police have heard a lot of support for the security cameras.

"Overall, what we've seen up to this point, there has not been a lot of negative publicity, not a lot of concern. It is generally positive," said McGuire.

But some are concerned that the police force has already made the decision to install security cameras and the meetings are just part of a public relations campaign.

Carleton University graduate student Kevin Walby, who has followed the growth of police cameras in the United Kingdom and Canada, says often in such cases the consultation process ends up as a way to "stave off a legitimacy crisis."

"It's not actually about consulting with people but it's more to keep a good face with the public," he said.

Eight public meetings have been scheduled at locations across the city in February.

The police force will assess comments made at the meetings before installing cameras in the spring.