OPP dealing with aftermath of wild weekend at Rondeau park
CHATHAM Campsites cleared, damages running into the thousands of dollars, scores of teenagers booted — even a 14-year-old taken to hospital with alcohol poisoning.
In the fallout of booze-fuelled long weekend craziness at one Southwestern Ontario provincial park, the likes of which the region hasn’t seen in years since a crackdown years ago on holiday drinking in parks, police were asking an uncomfortable question Tuesday — and suggesting an even more uncomfortable answer:
Are parents supplying their underage kids with booze?
“The majority of kids we ticketed and dealt with were under 19, (who) aren’t able to buy (alcohol) legally, which means somebody is getting it for them,” OPP detachment commander Sgt. Brian Knowler said of the Victoria Day long weekend trouble at Rondeau Provincial Park, south of Chatham on Lake Erie.
“We had more than one kid say, ‘My parents bought it for me.’ ”
Police said 19 campsites were cleared and 114 people — mainly minors — evicted. Many were arrested and charged the following night after returning to the park.
A park warden was assaulted, a 19-year-old man was hospitalized after a drug overdose, six campsites were trashed, and a washroom was damaged to the tune of $3,000.
Police also “probably seized thousands of dollars worth of alcohol” from the cleared-out campsites, Knowler said. Like Grand Bend, where many parents allow teens to attend controlled graduation parties where there’s alcohol, Rondeau is a frequent gathering place for young people as the high school year ends. But drinking in provincial parks on holiday weekends isn’t allowed, and police say the weekend mayhem should be a wake-up call for parents or siblings obtaining alcohol for underage teenagers.
“We are looking into several such cases from this weekend,” Knowler said.
Intoxicated holiday blow-outs at provincial parks were once common in Southwestern Ontario, but that changed in the 1980s after a series of May Two-Four parties that got out of hand and damaged park bathrooms and picnic tables.
An official at Rondeau confirmed Tuesday there was an alcohol ban in effect at the park on the weekend and the 10 days leading up to the Victoria Day holiday.
But, somehow, that message didn’t get through to the Rondeau Park-bound young people, some of whom tweeted the worst — and best — take-aways from the weekend using the Twitter account @24confessions2017.
It included such anonymous tweets from the long weekend as:
“Me and my buddy’s (sic) got really drunk, saw some bikes sitting on a sight (sic) went for a rip and brought them back later.”
“Got all drunk and ripped a sign out of the ground, Yogis (park police) saw us, so we ran and put it in someone’s tent.”
“Got too drunk and forgot what year it was.”
“My friend was so drunk she thought the tick on her foot was a fuzzy from her socks.”