First, the good news. The Blunden’s annual yard haunt raised over $1700 for the food bank, in addition to all the donations of food, diapers and toys.
The bad news? The haunt did not go as smoothly as it has in previous years. Not because of the organizers or volunteers, but because of the patrons.
“Not only were patrons—both teens AND adults—rude and dismissive, there was an unforgivable amount of offensive, vulgar and racist language directed at our volunteers,” says organizer Terry Cosgrove. “If that isn’t awful enough, we have several volunteers that were physically assaulted within the maze, we have many reports of people (teens AND adults) hitting, grabbing, and punching—so aggressively in fact, that some volunteers have large visible bruises.”
In addition, garbage was thrown on the ground inside and outside of the building, props were damaged beyond repair, teenagers jumped the fence and destroyed all of the lighting that was along the entrance walkway. Children were not supervised inside the building and candy was taken out of the display, leaving behind a mess and missing objects that were handmade and are not replaceable.
“If you are incapable of be respectful and keeping your hands to yourself, do us all a favour and stay home. If your kids cannot be trusted without adult supervision – keep them home too,” says Cosgrove.
“If we need to be concerned about the safety and well-being of our volunteers in fear of verbal and physical abuse, then this event is not worth it,” she says. “It is not worth our volunteers being purposely injured. An event like this is a privilege to the community, not an expectation or your average small town event. We offer something special and if that isn’t respected, it isn’t worth what is put into it year round in anticipation.”
For next year, Cosgrove says they will be investing in a security system to make sure things like this don’t happen again. “We will not tolerate abusive behaviour and foul language at an event meant to be fun and a fundraiser for the community,” she says. “We also suffered about $500 in damaged and broken props and lighting. As a non-profit this will be a very costly undertaking but necessary to keep not only our volunteers but guest safe as well. It shouldn’t need to come to this in such a small community. Very sad.”
She says many of those involved in the disruptive activity have been identified. “The RCMP will be reaching out to parents of many of the youths involved,” she says.
And for the question on everyone’s mind: now that the fairgrounds have been named, when will Grizfest be coming back? “Our power is now in, so we are looking at a year of fundraising in hopes of Grizfest 2025,” says Cosgrove. “We will be finishing up our beer gardens in the spring.”
For more details on the Tumbler Ridge Days Society and upcoming events visit www.trdayssociety.ca
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
