| Vandals cause $250,000 in damage |
| By Morgan Ian Adams |
| Enterprise-Bulletin (Tue, January 16, 2000) |
| COLLINGWOOD - Vandals went on a binge Saturday night,
causing more than $250,000 in damage in the former Harding building, and
putting at least one business out of operation for several days. |
| Police were called to the former plant - which now houses
several businesses, mostly for storage - early Sunday morning.
According to the Collingwood OPP, the spree began about 9 p.m. and lasted
until the early morning hours when police wee contacted. |
| The suspect(s) caused damage throughout most of the
building. Vehicles that were stored inside were started and used in
a fashion that resembled a demolition derby. |
| The destruction spree caused damage to boats, trailers,
computers, cars, trucks and the building in several places. The
culprit(s) at one point drove a vehicle off an inside loading dock
dropping about 6 feet crashing through the overhead door coming to rest
outside the building. |
| A truck was also driven through a concrete block wall. |
| The damage will have at least one of the businesses in the
building shut down for a week. DK Engineering has a welding shop in
the rear, where the company builds steel racks for the automotive
industry, as well as general steel fabrication. |
| "We'll be out at least a week," said Heiner
Philipp, head of engineering for DK. |
| The firm employs 20 people. Philipp says employees
will be staying home while the company arranges to have the wall, where
the culprits drove the company truck through, repaired. |
| "We have to get up and running - we have jobs that
need to be one and we can't delay it," Philipp said. |
| Damaged property includes a $25,000 computer system, and
$8,000 welder, plus two boats, two trucks (both belonging to DK
Engineering), two forklifts, several motorcycles, and three cars -
including a Studebaker. |
| There is also a significant amount of structural damage,
not only to the one wall, but also to several loading bay doors. |
| "I'd say more than one person was involved," said
Senior Constable Russ Stockdale. "An individual wouldn't
normally do that (kind of damage) by themselves." |
|
