Police Chief Ryan Hunt said, the Harvest Festival Weekend turned out to be a pretty typical weekend for the Winkler Police Service, with not as many calls as expected at the beginning of the weekend.
"There was a break and enter into a residence, the parties were known to each other, there were 2 incidents of street racing where two people in each of those occasions were racing and had their vehicles impounded. And then, there was a mischief incident at the parking lot at the fairgrounds. There was a report of somebody slashing tires there but looked like they maybe tried to damage some tires on one vehicle there, and then, there was a couple of incidents of individuals breaching their release order conditions they were on, and they had person in cells overnight under the Intoxicated Persons Detention Act."
Drinking and driving was not detected over the weekend. Hunt responded to a question whether check stops had been set up for the weekend.
"Not specifically a check stop for drinking and driving, but we had members from the Morden Police Service doing traffic patrols through Winkler during the weekend."
Commenting on the point this is the first year a Beer Garden was held at the Winkler Harvest Festival, Hunt responded, "We kind of wondered how that would play out too, but we didn't end up attending many calls as a result of anything at the festival. Overall, it was a pretty good weekend."
Hunt added, there were three or four extra officers on each shift for the weekend and people noticing the extra staff in and around the festival can help make the weekend the success it was.
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