The City of Kelowna took swift action in addressing hate-motivated graffiti discovered Tuesday, on the Rutland Arena.
A message directed at Indo-Canadians was spray-painted across the outside wall of the arena, at 645 Dodd Road.
Andrew Schwerdtfeger, roadways operations manager with the city, said, 鈥淲hen hate-motivated graffiti is discovered, our team responds promptly upon notification.鈥�
Schwerdtfeger added that incidents, such as the graffiti discovered on Aug. 19, are reported through the city鈥檚 internal security system. According to Schwerdtfeger, this particular case will be 鈥渋nvestigated and checked for available security footage.鈥�
A photo of the hate-motivated graffiti was shared on the Facebook group Kelowna Alert, garnering more than 200 comments in under 10 hours, which caught the attention of city councillor Mohini Singh, causing her distress and disappointment.
鈥淭his is just terrible, and there is no place for it in our community.鈥�
Singh thought that perhaps it could have been a group of kids who spray-painted the words.
鈥淭his is still terrible; there is no place in Kelowna for language like this. We are a multi-cultural society,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e need to embrace all cultures. This is very wrong. What is this supposed to achieve?鈥�
When Capital News asked the city if the RCMP had been contacted about the matter, Schwerdtfeger stated, "Escalation depends on the circumstances, such as recurring instances, extreme messaging, or high-profile locations.鈥�
Capital News reached out to the RCMP about an investigation into the graffiti incident, however, did not receive a response by publication deadline.
This story will be updated once more information becomes available.
