Bridgeland shows love after graffiti attack
Community rallies around businesses targeted by overnight graffiti attack
A post-christmas grinches' graffiti spree is being countered with community spirit after a dozen businesses were tagged in the Bridgeland area over the weekend.
Some time on late Saturday night-early Sunday morning, vandals sprayed black and white graffiti onto a dozen businesses in the 1st Avenue N.E. area of the inner-city neighbourhood as well as on the Bridgeland-riverside Community Association hall and on at least one vehicle.
The culprits didn't stop there, said community association president Brian Beck.
“The Christmas tree by the skating rink was stolen by someone who cut its wires, but it was retrieved after being found in a nearby park,” said Beck.
“We've been on the receiving end of this kind of thing before, but this is pretty extensive.”
On the side of the soon-to-open Village Ice Cream shop, vandals defaced existing artwork, said Beck.
“Between spraying over artwork and an act of cutting down a Christmas tree, it's more in the nature of being hurtful than expressive,” he said.
Some of those businesses hit by the vandals are already hurting or closed due to the pandemic and having to clean up the graffiti “adds insult to injury,” said Beck.
Community association board member Ali Mcmillan tweeted an image of the damage to their building, saying it was done at a time when they've been inactive due to COVID-19 and don't “have funds to repair.”
She also said there's surveillance video footage of the culprits.
“These businesses are already suffering,” said Mcmillan in the tweet. “They did so much senseless damage.”
But on Monday, residents had responded by pasting hearts over some of the graffiti in what Beck called “grassroots love.”
Christine Rogerson and others pasted laminated construction paper hearts over the graffiti scrawled on businesses until it can be properly removed.
“It changes the narrative — it's important to show we're responding to what's happened in our neighbourhood and it's a way of taking it back,” said Rogerson.
Village Ice Cream owner Billy Friley said the damage to his shop that's still under construction isn't a major concern but added it's a setback for other businesses.
“It's expensive and hard to remove and sometimes you don't even get to make it look like it never happened,” said Friley.
“I've been through it before.” As of yet, police have made no arrests but say they are investigating.