Sep 4, 2011

Vandals Shatter Kids’ Fun


For years a lot of local young kids – from toddlers up – have had fun when they played in the small playground behind Family Day Care down the back of Mascot Memorial Park off Aloha Street. The little colourful cubby houses, climbing ladders and all the rest were the centre of fun and imagination for countless little kids. 

The Saturday night before last – just before midnight – some morons decided it would be fun to pile up some leaves and then set a fire.  You can see the result! There are some things that make me angry and mindless vandalism – and the shattering of little kids’ fun – gets to me the most. We’ve had a spate of it at the moment – down in Sir Joseph banks Park for instance – and we’ll probably have it continue in the future. Local residents ask me how can we ‘vandal proof’ our playgrounds? 

Unfortunately we can’t. While there are morons (and that’s probably exaggerating their intelligence) prepared to pile up leaves and then, surely, laugh as they light their fire and are no doubt ‘proud’ of their handiwork, there’s little we can do.  Except, we’ll replace the equipment and continue our plans of expanding parks and playgrounds and do what we can to prevent vandalism. Our local residents help (and their vigilance does help) and work with local police to counter vandalism. I hope that one day these morons have children of their own and, maybe, when they take them to a playground they’ll see how much fun the kids have on the slides, the swings, the cubby houses and all the other equipment.  Maybe then they’ll feel some pangs of guilt for what they did down at the little Mascot park when they destroyed the fun of a lot of little kids. Maybe they will – maybe, they’re such morons that they won’t.

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