(Photo courtesy/Nipawin Kinsmen, Facebook)

By Ben Tompkins

Increased Crime

Town of Nipawin sees multiple vandalism cases in short stretch

Jun 28, 2023 | 12:37 PM

An increase in crime has spread across the Town of Nipawin, more specifically when it comes to cases of break and enter/theft and mischief/vandalism cases.

Both the Nipawin Kinsmen and the Knights of Columbus reported cases of vandalism over the weekend, and according to both, this isn’t the first time either.

“It is frustrating for our group because we’re volunteers and we’re just donating our time to try to improve the community,” Kinsmen president, Jeff Hrynkiw, said. “It’s kind of disheartening and frustrating when you have vandalism on a building where it’s just made by volunteers.”

“This isn’t the first time either, this is a second or third time,” added Knights of Columbus grand knight, Dennis Francais. “Once a year, they seem to have somebody go in there and smash up a toilet.”

For the Kinsmen, they had their gate latch broken off and garbage dumped within the fence compound, somewhere between late Thursday night and early Friday morning.

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They also previously had shoe polish and some other kind of black material (possibly spray paint) spread across the kinhut building.

According to their Facebook post, this ‘sadly highlights the much needed fundraising for their kinhut/Pinedale expansion project.’

“We have a little fenced in area but it’s just a standard wood fence so not super secure, and at the same time, it also creates a spot where once kids get into that fence scenario, they’re kind of unsupervised and hidden from the public view, that’s when they think if they vandalize or whatever they’re not gonna get caught, which is sometimes the case,” Hrynkiw explained.

“Actually having our building where that fenced in area is, and then having the inability for people to get inside, you’d get more more sightlines of the exterior of the building, which would hopefully make people feel more more exposed if they’re doing things that they shouldn’t be, and more easily seen by members of the public, so that can hopefully, kind of reduce the vandalism.”

As for the Knights of Columbus, they had their washrooms behind the town’s tourism and information booth vandalized on Saturday and Sunday.

A big rock was used to smash one of the toilets, while the other washroom had feces spread all around the walls.

They mentioned that the town has since cleaned up the mess and fixed the toilet, and they are planning a new way in which the washrooms will be able to be accessed, as a preventive measure.

“We are trying to take steps to ensure that you know, vandalism is limited in our parks and open spaces,” general manger of leisure services, Chelsea Corrigan told northeastNOW.

“Currently, we’re looking at different options to provide that facility still but to keep it vandalism free, so one may be providing a key to coaches of a ball team so that they can unlock them while they’re practicing or playing games.”

The washrooms are also often used by those at the nearby skate park.

Both vandalism cases point toward a couple of key stats which were recently shown to council by the Nipawin and Smeaton RCMP detachments in their latest monthly report.

In the month of May, compared to the previous month, both break and enter/theft and mischief/vandalism cases have gone up by 16, with numbers going from 23 to 39 and 39 to 55 respectively.

NortheastNOW reached out to local police and the Sasktachewan RCMP media relations line, however, a comment was not received back in time for publishing.

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On Twitter @BenTompkins_8