Editorial: A malicious crime in Rossland; and a drunk driver on the Cascade Highway
By Sara Golling
Bees killed:
The bees from a deliberately poisoned hive now lie writhing and dying. Someone had gone into the fenced back yard and sprayed an industrial-strength wasp killer on the hive and the surrounding area, at a home on Victoria Avenue.
The hive of bees had been delivered just two weeks earlier, by the 99-year-old great-grandfather of the 13-year-old boy for whom they were a gift. He had driven all the way from Alberta to deliver the gift, and to visit.
Many Rosslanders are already aware of this crime, as it was posted on a FaceBook page.
Aside from the disturbing malice of destroying a living birthday gift from a young person’s great-grandfather, killing a colony of bees is one more blow to the health of the earth’s biosphere. Bees are a vital part of the earth’s ecosystems, and unfortunately they are in decline world-wide. All the more reason to cherish bees, not kill them.
The nastiness of the bee-killing was compounded by dousing the yard around it – not just the bee-hive – with the poison that killed the bees, according to the FaceBook post. The RCMP are investigating. If anyone has any information that could possibly help solve this crime, please report it to the RCMP so that whoever did this can be apprehended and questioned – and can learn something, we hope. You can call the RCMP at 250-364-2566, or call CRIMESTOPPERS at 1-877-222-8477 if you wish to remain anonymous.
The home-owner commented sadly, “All I can say is, heads-up, Rosslanders. This is the kind of town we live in now.” Realistically, a few toxic personalities have poisoned Rossland’s community in the past, too. We have had drug dealers and murders and thefts. We have also always had a large number of people who don’t think the rules apply to them when it comes to bylaws intended to protect Rossland’s livability – rules against burning yard waste, idling, loud noise after certain hours, speeding, illegal U-turns, jaywalking, smoking or vaping in the downtown core, scooping dog poop, even littering – these things sound so inconsequential when compared with killing a whole hive of bees and stealing property in a fenced yard (or any yard!) but they are all about the same thing: respect for the rights, and the health and well-being, of others.
Without that respect, we can’t truly claim to be civilized.
Drunk driver roll-over:
In other RCMP news from “The Mountain Kingdom,” an allegedly drunk – and possibly also high — driver rolled his 2002 grey Nissan Pathfinder right over onto its roof on the Cascade Highway. The RCMP report that the driver and his passenger were uninjured, but the 31-year-old driver has been charged with driving while impaired. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance in Provincial Court in Rossland, on August 15, 2019.
Humans have sought altered states of consciousness since the dawn of history and probably even earlier; so do elephants, monkeys, bears, birds, and apparently even dolphins, but it behooves everyone who alters their state of consciousness to refrain from driving or operating any other dangerous machinery while experiencing impaired, or chemically “enhanced,” states of awareness. It’s all part of that respect for others mentioned above, and what level of civilization people choose.
Aim high, gentle readers – aim high.
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