Items discovered in a play structure Wednesday (Photo credit: Facebook)

By Sheena Roszell

concerned citizens

Parents outraged after recent cases of drug-use debris found where kids play

Sep 12, 2019 | 1:37 PM

A city mom who took her kids to Lion’s Park Wednesday said she was really disturbed when they came across drug paraphernalia, including a needle in a play structure at the park.

“My kids were playing fairly close to that mess and it is incredibly disturbing! I am so happy it was me that saw it before my kids got too close to it. I thought it was a forgotten backpack and was about to check it to return it to the owner. I saw the mess and told my kids we were leaving, that it was dangerous. They were disappointed, 3 and 4 are at an age that they wouldn’t have even known to stay away from it,” she told Everything GP.

There were also reportedly two needles found in a local schoolyard during the first week of school and a letter was circulated to parents.

The parent who found the debris at Lion’s Park called Northreach Society five or six times and left them a message. She said she left the park feeling sick, not knowing if someone was on the way or not.

Everything GP spoke with Johnathon Fortune, Assistant Executive Director with Northreach Society who says she did the right thing by calling them and they try to respond to these types of calls as quickly as possible, but their organization is struggling.

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He says they only have enough funding to do this type of work until 10 p.m., seven days a week, but they really try to respond as quickly as possible.

“We checked the message and responded, unfortunately, it took us about an hour to respond because we were responding to other situations in the city, but we do try our best to respond. We only had one employee on last night that was available to respond to the issue, and she was, unfortunately, responding on the other side of the city,” he explained.

The mom is hopeful they can come up with a better system so cases like this are taken care of a lot sooner.

Fortune says he is very sorry the community had to attend to this issue. He says the opioid crisis and homelessness are a community, provincial and federal issue and they (Northreach) are responding the best they can.

Local RCMP say it’s on their radar and is definitely very concerning to them that needles are turning up in parks.

“Places, where children are playing, is definitely not somewhere, we want any sort of drug activity, especially sharp needles and such,” said Constable Candace Hrdlicka with the Grande Prairie RCMP Detachment.

“From an RCMP perspective we would strongly encourage the public to call in any suspicious activity that they are seeing occurring,” she said. “We can make those extra patrols and get to those locations and identify individuals.”

More evidence of drug-use found Wednesday at the bottom of the slides at Lion’s Park

Parents are asked to talk to their children about needles and what they should do if they come across one.

There are currently nine needle disposal boxes placed around the city. If you’re near one and see a needle, Fortune says use gloves and tongs if you feel comfortable enough cleaning it up yourself. If you would like to have Northreach handle it, call 780-832-8548. If you or a child is poked by a needle, visit the emergency room ASAP.