The Athabasca Regional Multiplex Society is looking to ramp up security after it was hit twice by criminals and vandals in the last few months.
The first incident occurred on May 24, when a vehicle was stolen from the Multiplex parking lot in the early evening.
The second event happened when a vehicle spun in circles in the soccer field in the middle of the night and tore up the grass, according to Multiplex general manager Dustin Pysyk.
Pysyk, Athabasca RCMP Staff Sgt. Brian Nicholl and the Alberta RCMP Media hotline said they could not provide a date for the police report.
“We estimated (damage) to be about $1,000 on the fields,” Pysyk said. “It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it is the nuisance of having to go reseed it, rerake it – it’s time consuming. Also, for two days we had to cancel soccer.”
He said that security footage has been handed to the authorities, but in the case of the vehicle on the soccer field, it was too dirty to identify the license plate.
“I would just like to say, if anybody happens to know any information on the incidents on the soccer field, to let me know,” he said. “Sources will be kept confidential, but we would still like to know who this was and let them know that we’re watching.”
As of right now, the Multiplex society is considering putting up fence posts to protect the soccer fields, he added, which would be an extensive undertaking.
Pysyk said the Multiplex society is in talks with Aspen View Public Schools about a joint-use agreement that will feature a section on securing the area and what that will look like once construction starts on the new Edwin Parr Composite secondary school.
“We’re in two folds,” Pysyk noted. “One is, we need to see exactly what part of the soccer fields the school is actually going to take and where their fencing is going to go. If we can get away with protecting it just through the concept of construction, well, we would spend the money to do that.”
Aspen View will be taking up the soccer fields once construction begins, but is set to replace the field when finished.
However, Pysyk said that if the school division follows the school design, which would leave one field untouched, the Multiplex Society would look at protecting the rest of the soccer field surface.
“Part of the plan is Aspen View has to replace the two fields that they are taking over,” he said.
“Within the plans, they’re building their own field, too. It’s kind of an added bonus for the community and the Multiplex area in the sense that we’re actually getting more fields in this deal. Right now, it’s one (field), but the way that it’s all laid out, there might be potential for another one.”
