-Intoxicated adults and teenagers seen kicking down fence posts at night-

OSOYOOS TIMES-August 20, 2008-

By Chad Ingram
Osoyoos Times

Anyone who passes by the abandoned Petro-Canada property at the corner of Main Street and Cottonwood Drive regularly may have noticed that lately, less and less of the fence seems to be standing.
Local police and employees at an area motel are convinced nighttime vandals are responsible for the damage, which has left several of the fence's wooden panels broken and pulled from its frame.
I haven't seen anybody . . . but I would think it's kids, said Gary Mann, who owns the Sahara Courtyard Inn, located next to the Petro-Canada property on Cottonwood Drive. They know nobody's there.
Mann said the damage has been happening during the past couple of months.
You wake up and more of it's gone, he said.
By the end of last week, about one-fifth of the fence that surrounds the property had been knocked to the ground.
Mann said similar damage to the fence has happened in past years, but on a lesser scale.
Maybe a panel here or there, he said. And someone would always come and fix it up.
Mann said he expects the fence to be completely down before long if the apparent vandalism keeps up.
While the damage this year has happened during Osoyoos's peak tourist season, Mann said he didn't think tourists were responsible.
I've seen it happen in the winter before, he said.
A motel employee who wished not be named said he had seen people vandalizing the fence at night, kicking at it before running away.
It's just drunk people, he said. Adults and teenagers.
Cpl. Dan Moskaluk of the Osoyoos RCMP said the incidents were unfortunate.
Once the damage is there it just keeps happening and happening, Moskaluk said, adding that the RCMP had no suspects or witnesses concerning the damaged fence and that such acts of vandalism can be difficult to prevent.
A spokesperson for Petro-Canada said on Aug. 13 that the company had not been aware of the damage but that management would be doing something about the problem by either having the fence rebuilt or tearing it down completely.
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