Hundreds of flowers were pulled from plant beds during a late-night vandalism spree in Parksville this week, causing damage in excess of $2,000.
“It’s senseless,” said Deb Tardiff, the city’s manager of communications. “Totally senseless.”
The vandalism occurred two nights in a row that started some time late Wednesday night and into Thursday morning. The pulled plants were replanted by crews on Thursday, but on Friday morning, Tardiff said city crews discovered more plants were pulled up late Thursday night from near Home Hardware in downtown Parksville.
“They just tore up hundreds of the annual flowers and at the same time causing damage to irrigation,” said Tardiff. “They really made quite a mess.”
The other locations where damages were done to the city plant beds include those from the Sea Edge Motel and along Craig Street.
Tardiff said city crews are extremely disappointed.
“Our parks crews at this time of the year work so hard because they have their regular duties but then they’ve got all this extra stuff where we get some pressure from residents to make the city look good,” said Tardiff.
“All the beds need to be done and everything is growing quickly. Then to have all of this happen…”
Tardiff commended the city crews as they did their best to salvage the damaged flowers but that also meant extra work and cost to the city.
On a happy note, Tardiff said on Friday morning, Superior Farms Inc, where the City of Parksville gets its annual plants, read the Facebook post about the damaged flowers and offered to replace the bedding plants for free to the city. Tardiff said the city is grateful.
The vandalism has been reported to the Oceanside RCMP but Tardiff said they have no means of monitoring all the plant beds in the city.
“There’s nothing we can do,” said Tardiff. “We can’t have cameras everywhere in town.”
Tardiff said the public can help by being vigilant and if they seen anything suspicious happening, they are advised to call police.
“Maybe it can be a deterrent,” she said.
