Live music and events bring people to the village and some of those people bring alcohol, but overall the Whistler RCMP was pleased with the behaviour of the crowds at this year's World Ski and Snowboard Festival. There were no major incidents reported.
On Friday night, the opening night of the festival, there were three arrests for being intoxicated in public, plus 13 bylaw tickets for open liquor ($100), two provincial tickets for open liquor ($230) and one bylaw ticket for creating a nuisance.
On Saturday night, which featured the skier Big Air competition and a village-packing performance by hip hop legend Nas, police were substantially busier. Seven were arrested for public intoxication, and police wrote 32 bylaw tickets for open liquor, two provincial tickets for open liquor, two bylaw tickets for obstruction, two bylaw tickets for urinating in public and one bylaw ticket for creating a nuisance.
One suspect arrested for public intoxication was found urinating on the memorial cenotaph. The male was under conditions not to consume alcohol relating to an earlier arrest for assault and for damaging a cell by breaking the sprinkler head in May 2012. In custody on Saturday, he broke the sprinkler head once again. The police will be seeking charges for breaching his conditions, as well as restitution for the cost of repairing the cell.
Cheque Fraud triggers investigation
On April 10 the RCMP received a report of fraud after a man selling an Asian art piece on Craigslist received a fraudulent cheque from eSecureData. He called the company to verify that the cheque was genuine and was told to contact the police, as the company's letterhead had been used in other recent frauds. The seller became suspicious when the spelling of the seller's name, Ralph John, was spelled differently in his email address and correspondence.
The value of the uncashed cheque was $1,990.50; the art piece was never sent.
