the north grenville
www.ngtimes.ca
TIMES Vol. 2, No. 16
The Voice of North Grenville
April 23, 2014
Mystery at the North Grenville Library
Sustainability Fair April 27
by David Shanahan An incident took place at the NG Public Library on Easter Sunday that has the OPP investigating a mystery. At some point in the midafternoon, possibly around 4 pm, someone, or something, broke the main window beside the front door. The outer of the double panes was broken and bulged outwards, quite dangerously, while the inner pane was damaged, but did not break. It was a very quiet afternoon in downtown Kemptville and nothing was seen or heard, even by the staff at Mr. Mozarella’s right across the street. The broken window seemed to have been impacted from the inside, with the broken shards and re-
maining section of the glass pane bulging outward and looking very fragile. OPP officers arrived on the scene shortly afterwards, and were careful to warn people away from approaching the window, in case the glass shattered further. Within an hour, the broken window had been replaced by a temporary pane, and police tape kept people at a safe distance. The Library was closed for the long weekend, and there are no CCTV cameras in the area, so there was nothing to tell who, or what, had been responsible for the breakage. It should be noted that there was no-one hanging around the scene earlier, aside from one or two passers-by. But no-one witnessed
anything suspicious, although one woman reported a young man sitting outside the Library some time before. There were some who assumed that young people must have done something, but that is unlikely, given the absence of people in the area. But there has been a problem at the Library in recent months. Groups of young people have tended to hang around outside that door, causing some concern among staff and library users. They have insisted on smoking in the non-smoking area, and have been abusive to people going in and out of the library. The situation has been so intimidating at times, that Head Librarian, Sue Higgins, has had meetings with the Library Board,
the municipal staff and the OPP to see what can be done about the issue. Library staff are continuing to monitor the problems and have requested that random visits from the OPP be continued. Ironically, the OPP had a satellite office in the library building when it first opened, but it closed some time ago. The office was immediately beside where the window was broken. At the time of going to press, there is still no clue as to what caused the breakage, either through a deliberate act of vandalism, or through some inherent fault in the window itself. It is, at least, fortunate that the library was closed at the time, with no passers-by or library users hurt by the glass.
April is Cancer Awareness Month