Vandalism on Empress

Though a resident of Empress Avenue in Pointe Claire has had the glass panes on her side door destroyed for the second time in a scant few weeks, town officials and her neighbours stated that area of town is usually safe and not necessarily and does not usually attract trouble.

"(Public security) told me to install a camera in the tree," said the resident in question, Mrs. Bouchard, who did not want her first name revealed due to safety concerns. "It costs $1,000 to install a camera," she said.

Bouchard lives near a small park on Maywood Street, where she said unruly teenagers tend to gather at night. The first time her side door's glass pane was broken, she said, she installed motion detector lights in front of her house.

"I thought that would be the end of it," she told The Chronicle<@$p> over the telephone. However, last week, she said the same side door was attacked, the bottom glass pane of her door destroyed this time instead.

However, Pointe Claire Mayor Bill McMurchie said the incident should be considered as an isolated one, as it is not really a problem in the area around Empress or Maywood, nor is it frequent anywhere else in Pointe Claire.

"It's not an epidemic," he said. "There's not much damage done to private property. I don't hear (about these types of complaints) at all," McMurchie said.

And another resident of Empress Avenue, who wished to remain anonymous in order to avoid any problems with neighbours, said the area is rather quiet and not a frequent target of vandalism.

"There certainly hasn't been a significant amount of break-ins," he said, adding that Empress' is a close-knit community where neighbours tend to watch out for each other.

According to the resident, the only significant disturbance of note involving the small park in question was an attempted sexual assault two years ago which was stopped dead in its tracks when he and other neighbours converged on the scene.

"There was a very, very fast response," he recalled. "The park was full of people."

"The park itself is clean. The equipment hasn't been damaged or scratched," he said.

Swing sets and slides at the tiny green space indeed looked untouched earlier this afternoon in knee-deep snow, with plenty of footsteps surrounding them.