ATV vandals rip donuts into Noah’s Place Park

By Chris Lewis|August 5, 2021

It has taken than a week for newly renamed Noah’s Place Park to experience its first bout of vandalism.

The playground on Reardon Avenue was renamed for Noah Zaja on July 27.

At Tuesday’s public council meeting, Deputy Mayor Elizabeth Laurie informed her colleagues the playground has been the target of some off-road vehicle vandalism.

“It was really sad for me, on Saturday morning, to receive a text message from the family saying the park had been vandalized by ATVs,” Laurie said.

The damage included track marks left by the vehicles doing donuts.

Laurie described the news as disheartening.

“People are really angry about it, and unfortunately the people who do these things, they’re giving the respectful ATV users a bad name,” Laurie said.

Although she had her doubts that it would happen, Laurie did take a moment to implore those responsible for the vandalism to step forward and acknowledge their behaviour, or even apologize. She suggested those responsible could take this as a learning opportunity, to make better choices and pay it forward by doing something kind for someone else.

“The whole theme of this park is kindness, and this was not kind,” she said.

Town staff will make an effort to repair the damages.

Mayor Dan Bobbet was not impressed by what he heard, either. He highlighted what he called indiscriminate use of ATVs throughout the Town, stating that Town staff now have the training and ability to curbing this type of activity.

He said staff would be vigilant in doing so.

“This is destruction of public, private property,” said the mayor. “It’s beyond me why anyone would do such a thing.”