If you’ve noticed shards of glass around the Hope Golf and Country Club and the Sports Bowl, that’s because they were victims of vandalism last weekend.
The Golf Club had two restaurant windows broken into and had six to eight Palm Bay coolers stolen, according to owner-operator Vince Cianfagna. In addition, the vandals trashed the patio, broke more glass around the putting green and broke flowerpots on the first tee. Before they left from the bridge across the Coquihalla River, they left three drinks on the Golf Club’s gate.
“I think they might have found one of our sprinker heads out front and looks like they might have used one of the chairs in the patio to break the glass,” said Cianfagna. “They broke two big panes of glass to come in and then the motion alarm went off, but not the door alarms because obviously they didn’t come through one of the doors.”
Hope RCMP detachment commander Karol Rehdner described the incident in an email, saying that they received a call on 6 a.m. Sunday.
“Sometime overnight an unknown person(s) damaged windows on site and gained access into the building. Investigation has determined that there were items stolen from the premises. Additionally there were some planters overturned for no known reason,” said Rehdner. “Hope RCMP has secured the assistance of UFVRD Integrated Forensic Identification Section as the investigation into this incident is ongoing.”
More glass was broken at the Sports Bowl, where an excavator had its windows broken, according to spokesperson Scott Medlock.
“There’s two large boulders on the inside of it, so they smashed out four windows in total,” said Medlock. “Shattered three of them and put a big dent in one of them.”
The machine was stationed at the Sports Bowl in preparation for Brigade Days. Machine operators were using it to do work like fencing, moving guard rails and moving logs.
Medlock said he has no idea who did this, but he estimates this act of vandalism would cost $2,500 in repairs.
“It’s pretty sad that they have nothing else to do but destroy other people’s property,” said Medlock.
Medlock said there were two cars at the Sports Bowl, but they were untouched. A police report has been lodged.
Rehdner said that they responded to a call of vandalism at approximately 1 p.m. They said the incident happened sometime overnight and the people or person involved is unknown.
Cianfagna has also lodged a police report. He said that the club cleaned the glass before the Hope Ladies’ Golf Tournament, hence police were able to get fingerprints.
“They got a lot of fingerprints and some footprints on the chairs,” said Cianfagna.
Police are asking for information regarding these incidents to contact them at 604-869-7750 or call CrimeStoppers.
