THE owner of a North Vancouver tattoo parlour has been left scratching his head after vandals ripped a power pole and other equipment off the back of his shop - apparently for no reason other than to hurt his business.
Darryl Gardner was at home in the early hours of Nov. 27 when he noticed one of his store's security cameras, connected wirelessly to a monitor in his residence, had gone dark.
He got up - "out of paranoia," he said - and rushed down to the parlour at 110 East First Street. There he found a bizarre sight: Someone had torn down a power pole attached to his business, stolen a security camera and done damage to other electrical equipment. Nothing of any real value had been taken, however.
"Why would you destroy electrical stuff when you could use a crowbar and open the door?" asked Gardner.
"We found the pole around the corner in the alley. . . . It's an eight-by-eight-inch post; they had to use a vehicle (to pull it down)."
He was shocked, he said. "I just thought: 'OK, somebody hates me."
Gardner was up for the next 30 hours organizing emergency repairs to get his business back up and running.
The damage will be covered by his landlord, fortunately, but the senseless act left him and his young employees rattled, he said.
"The ladies downstairs who own the corner store, they're scared now (too)," said Gardner.
North Vancouver RCMP investigated the scene and managed to lift a partial print, he said. They also sent footage of the incident to a lab for analysis.
Gardner still has no idea who might have been behind it, however.
"I don't have any enemies," he said. "I don't have anybody who dislikes the business."
Anyone with information is asked to contact the North Vancouver detachment at 604-985-1311.
jweldon@nsnews.com
