has anybody thought to address the issue that there are a bunch of drunk, parentless degenerates running around on the streets smashing hard working peoples windows out? i remember quite well those fuckers, i had one toss a bottle at me one morning on my way to work, bastard almost got me in the head. the only way to deal with people who don’t have the ability to think rationally is to return the favour. i’m not saying form a lynch mob (well, ya i guess i am) but it’s obvious the cops don’t care, the town council doesn’t care, and the parents of this trash don’t care, so stand outside and wait for them. or use bumbot gizmodo.com/383911/bumbot-roboco … e-homeless
Unfortunately, this vandalism affects us all in Prince Rupert-not just the businesses in town. Businesses may be forced to offset the costs of their increased insurance or simply the costs of repairing the windows to the customer. It also affects our psyche as a community as has been outlined in some of the messages suggesting anti-vigilism, etc. There isn’t one simple answer to deal with this. It’s a complex problem that requires a multi-faceted approach-many of which has been suggested in the thread of these messages (cameras, police focusing on vandals, City Council establishing by-laws to deal with these problems); however, these won’t resolve it.
- The new president of the chamber (Deb Stawa) has to work on behalf of its members to lobby Council for changes.
- Concerned citizens have to join Citizens on Patrol. Bob Kilberry, the new head cop, has promised to strike this defunct organization.
- Support Myles Moreau and the amazing work he has been doing with the kids on the streets. The Ministry cut his funding, and we need to lobby the government to reinstate his funding.
- Call Farley Stewart or Rudy Kelly at Friendship House to see if they are still meeting to address vandalism.They had a committee represented by several community organizations concerned with the vandalism occurring in the Fraser Street area. This can be expanded to include all of Rupert.
These are only a few suggestions. I’m sure there are many more. The vandalism occurring is a reflection of a huge societal problem in our city. Attacking these kids won’t solve the problem, but starting this dialogue is the first step.
This is a problem everywhere these days. If the vandals were working somewhere they wouldn’t have time to be vandals.
They took out the windows of the Pizza place, 5 houses up the street, and a guy’s fully restored 55 Pontiac here last Friday.
Nobody knows nutthin of course.
Who said anything about the courts? Rupert is a small town it wouldn’t be hard to find the little shits and present their parents with the footage. If that fails post the pictures in an ad in the paper. You’d be surprised what parents will do once they’re publicly embarrassed.
We’ll send jesus and rollins to the Fort after they’ve cleaned up podunk… 
My car was vandalized once. Unfortunately for the kid I caught him doing it, dragged him to his parents. His parents were so embarrassed they borrowed 500 bucks from their friends on the spot and gave me the money. As I walked away I could hear the screams of pain from their child.
You can bet he never vandalized anything again. I didnt expect the parents to do anything because their child was always a little fucker but the whole neighborhood saw me dragging him home so I guess they wanted to look “good”.
In all honesty even if the RCMP were involved nothing would happen to the kids anyway so I’d suggest going the public embarrassment route. Post pictures of the little bastards in the newspaper make sure everyone knows who they are and to keep an eye out for them.
Get the business community together, ban them from your stores. Either that or sit around whining and bitching that city council isnt doing anything its your money.
Manners!! It all comes down to manners. We should make Emily Post required reading by everyone under age 20, and some above too.
It’s despair. Held a rally today as the “roundtable” decided to cancel it’s meet in the Fort and hold it in Vanderhoof. Not even a significant forest town compared to the Fort.
Out of 300 laid off at one mill since Oct, 75 from another out since last June, and 100 others still working reduced shifts, about 50 turned up. 35 shuttled to Vanderhoof.
No one from the District was there.
No one from the NDP or Liberals were there.
CBC, CTV, Global and the “local” radio didn’t show up.
PG Citizen didn’t show up.
I’m sure were AT Vanderhoof when our guys showed up, but no one could go 40 mins out of the way to show support or report.
Now wonder why the other 300 out of work didn’t show? Should have been doing this 6 months ago, then we could be on the News every night like Mackenzie.
Shows what having a Liberal insider like Pat Bell for MLA instead of a useless tit like Rustad.
They gave us $130,000 for a grant to study more farming opportunities here out of the Beetle Fund. Have a bone, niggers.
We all know WHO among the local insiders will gobble it up in consultant fees to produce another useless bundle of paper. Paper they’ll buy somewhere else.
Unfortunately that wouldn’t work because the accused seem to have more rights than the places they are infringing upon. Even if you were to catch a kid red handed, there will always be someone looking for loopholes in YOUR story to get the kid off the hook.
If the parents gave 2 shits about their kids, the kids probably wouldn’t be downtown smashing windows in the first place. And their family wouldn’t be intellectual enough to even glance at a newspaper.
I say we all leave town and leave the hoodlums here. Children of the Corn anyone?
Good points. They do belong in the “responsible” category. However, I see this all too much. Multiple organizations or groups all being busy-bee’s and creating more work for their organizations.
While you may feel compelled to “help” the vandals that may be afflicted with a societal breakdown in upbringing or current circumstance; this is quite simply a “Keeping the Peace” issue. We simply cannot have kids nor adults running around like hoodlums causing damage. If you look to the environmental factors that caused the issues without firstly hitting the problem hard with manpower (RCMP) you will be resting on your heals. In the interim, the businesses suffer, the community suffers while administrative and collaborative boards are “talking.” Any good parent will tell you that punishment for bad behaviour and rewards for good behaviour teach and enable youth.
That vandalism committee did not accomplish anything measurable, by the way. The actions that brought about measurable change in vandalism on Fraser Street were cameras installed by Fairview Management, cameras mounted at Friendship House(4 corners of the building?) and stepped up patrols by the RCMP. Now the RCMP are working with youth to encourage harmony with RCMP, outreach organizations and the youth themselves thanks to Friendship House(and maybe other groups?). For the youths sake, that’s very good.
Back to the topic of broken windows: The time for talk and helping these individuals came and went a long time ago. They belong in a detention facility to see the reprocussions of their actions. Once they’re restrained you have free access to “address” the issues that face them.
It isn’t easy catching these individuals and I am not going to speculate about their parents, without knowing who these individuals are. I do know that when you see young parents up town with their little ones in strollers at all hours of the night, my guess is these little ones grow up walking the streets at all hours. These parents need to learn parenting skills. Where is the Ministry when children are out all hours of the night? This is another subject for discussion.
It was six hours later, after I made my first post that I was again called to attend the store, because we were hit again.
The RCMP are doing the best they can with the resources they have at that hour of the night.
There was a comment that City workers would complain if these offenders took work away from them. Maybe the City workers wouldn’t mind if it was done while they were enjoying their free activities at the pool. This too is another subject for discussion.
Perhaps we need to have a peaceful rally at City Hall on cruise ship day to get our message across. It seems protesters get what they want. Nothing is going to be done until our voices are heard.
Nah, set 'em all up on an island in the harbor or something. Let them fend for themselves out there.
i remember about 10 years ago the VW dealer in Thornhill was being broken into almost nightly for about 2 weeks. Owner tried the camera and alarm trick with no go, him and his son stayed a couple of nights, caught the kids in question and oops once accidently fell down the stairs … something about grease on the stairs. Cops were called, parents wanted to press charges didn’t go anywhere … NO MORE BREAK INS! We used to have citizens on Patrol here worked well as an extra set of eyes and ears for the police. The city council is past pathetic with a lot of stuff. I hope everyone keeps all these issues in the back of their minds come election time!
Thick and ugly wire mesh over windows and doors.
Along with a sign letting the tourists know this is due to rampant vandalism.
Sucks but at least it gets around the issue of having to try and take the idiots to court or the possibility of facing lawsuits from parents whose kids are chased down in the streets and beaten senseless by frustrated shop-keepers.
as an albertan i can tell you this kind of talk has all the beginings for a lynch mob, other then fact it’s a bunc of nameless people on the net. you want people to stop breaking windows? toss a rock at them like they do the window, and see if they do it again, or hold em down and jump on thier hands so they can’t use thier fingers. no amount of calling the friendship house or petions is going to work, you want results, go smack the taste out of one of them, that will get results. but of course i’m a redneck and a racist for those comments
I’m sure some people here in PR probably feel this way. However, vigilante justice is a crime. I certainly hope something is done to help the store owners here.
hit first, shoot first then ask questions, 
seek help 
Despair snowballs.
Every other shop boarded up, every 3rd open shop with plywood over a broken window. Drunks on the streets in broad daylight and pestering you for handouts within seconds.
Guys who told me "We didn’t want CBC or CTV to come to the rally here. We need help, if they saw what a shithole this place is… we wouldn’t get any. Met them in Vanderhoof instead (just like they were protesting the Roundtable doing)"
It sinks into the psyche.
Then the kids hear the adults and they figure it’s no big deal to smash the place up even worse.
(gonna do positive vandalism. Break in the clinic and then fill the town’s artesian well with Prozac)
No argument from me. I wonder if the bean counters at City Hall are listening or even paying attention? Election time is coming in November. 