NANAIMO -- A surveillance camera has captured the moment when someone spray-painted the front entrance of the Nanaimo SPCA.
The incident happened around 1:45 a.m. Friday morning at the Nanaimo SCPA on Westwood Road.
The video shows a shirtless man wearing blue jeans with white shoes on, running up to the front door of the SPCA and tagging it with black spray paint. The vandal took less than 30 seconds and ran away from the building in the same direction.
“It wasn’t nice for the team to come into and see this morning. COVID-19 has been a struggle for everybody, us included,” said Leon Davis, branch manager of the Nanaimo SPCA on Friday.
“Fundraising hasn’t been easy, and we really don’t need to be redirecting funds to be cleaning up senseless graffiti off our building,” he said.
Theft from the shelter has happened before, but Davis says this is the first time it has been vandalized.
Local street artists with the Humanity In Art organization are big animal lovers and saw a Facebook post about the incident. On Friday afternoon, they came by the Nanaimo SPCA to help clean up the graffiti.
“We work with spray paint a lot and have the tools and products to try and deal with it,” said Lauren Semple with Humanity In Art.
The video and photos have been given to the Nanaimo RCMP and they are now investigating.
