I was at Willingdon Beach on Tuesday, May 23, with my grandson, who is three years old. I was pushing him on the swings in the playground.
A young lady was there with her two children, one a boy about 10-ish and a younger girl.
There were also four younger people there; I would say tweens, 12 to 14 years old, maybe; certainly not driving age, sitting on a bench.
I noticed from a glance that the older girl was loading a bong. She also had a couple other bongs sticking out of her pack. One of the younger girls took a loaded bong and strutted off with it while another was being filled.
I was struggling a bit with what I was seeing and what I could do about it when the lady with the children went over and reprimanded the tweens. She was met with a lot of attitude and colourful language, then the tweens wandered off with their drug paraphernalia.
She came over to me and I thanked her for her actions. My hands were a little tied because of the age of my grandson.
I was thinking later that I probably would/should have taken a picture and posted it on social media.
Would calling the police have worked? I doubt it.
I feel what they could have done was confiscate the drugs and bongs and detain them at the station and have their parents pick them up. Probably not allowed, but it should be.
The sad part is if I had my dog down there off leash, someone would have made a phone call and a bylaw officer would have been there within minutes to write me a citation. Go figure.
Kudos to the young woman with the children.
I’m having a problem with what I saw next to a children’s playground in the middle of the day.
Wayne Obermeyer is a Powell River resident.
