Newmarket's Fairy Lake not so pretty on recent Sunday morning

'If there isn’t a garbage bin nearby, or if the bin is full, residents can consider bringing the waste home to dispose of,' town official says

Newmarkettoday.ca
July 22, 2020
Kim Champion

Just as everyone needs to do their part to stop the spread of the coronavirus during the COVID-19 pandemic, so, too, is it up to the community to help keep Newmarket clean and green by not littering, a town official said.

When emailed photographs of overflowing garbage bins at Fairy Lake last Sunday morning, the Town of Newmarket’s development and infrastructure commissioner Peter Noehammer said it’s important for people to be mindful of the waste they produce.

“If there isn’t a garbage bin nearby, or if the bin is full, residents can consider bringing the waste home to dispose of,” said Noehammer.

“With more and more people at home due to the pandemic and taking advantage of the green space in and around town, we are noticing more people having picnics in the park, leading to more garbage bins overflowing,” he added.

The garbage bins in and around Fairy Lake are emptied once daily from Monday to Sunday, but with reduced summer staff this season due to the pandemic, there may be times where it is taking longer to clear the bins, Noehammer said.

The garbage in the area was hauled away by Monday morning, he said.

Visitors to Fairy Lake on Sunday also noticed that several town signs installed along the trails had been vandalized.

One sign, for example, put up on the Tom Taylor Trail boardwalk as a reminder during the COVID-19 pandemic to ‘stop and do not enter’ the one-way trail, had been defaced with some lyrics to The Supremes song, Stop in the Name of Love.

The vandal(s) wrote ‘Go crazy’ at the top of the sign. What followed before and after the word stop, was ‘in the name of love, b4 you break my heart, pretty baby’.

Another sign that reminds people there’s no bicycle riding on the trail had an ‘X’ put through those words, and replaced with ‘helmet laws suck’ written in marker.

Noehammer said town staff will attempt to clean the graffiti off the signs, but if the ink doesn’t come off, the signs will need to be replaced.

It is not yet known what that vandalism will cost the town, but recent graffiti on the Charles VanZant Woodlot sign on Wayne Drive at Waratah Avenue cost $100 to remove.

The town regularly monitors various areas and removes graffiti as soon as possible. Residents that notice graffiti on public or private property are asked to contact the Town of Newmarket by emailing info@newmarket.ca or calling 905-895-5193 with the location of the graffiti.

Residents can also use the report-a-problem feature in the Recycle Coach app to report graffiti.

If you see graffiti or vandalism in progress, you are encouraged to call 911. Graffiti is a crime and should be reported to the York Regional Police, the town says.