Open Season

foreign [Music] my Park my baby you know I'm only the superintendent here but I feel like the father of three thousand beautiful Acres sometimes I think I know every one of them like it was my front lawn I guess that's why I still get upset when people come in and do all kinds of silly things here simply because they don't think of the park as their home well it's bound to happen it out of ten thousand people you couldn't expect everyone to behave themselves for the whole weekend it would wouldn't be natural foreign City problems the more problems society and the city's have the more problems I have that's fair enough everybody wants to get away from the long hot summer in the city the noise and tension and demands the school teachers or bosses of that part-time job fresh air and a few cases of beer or a wonderful way of letting off steam and a great way of meeting girls [Music] the girls are a wonderful audience if they weren't paying attention to the boys Shenanigans they'd probably forget it if you can't show off if you can't hassle some guy and upset his wife and three kids there wouldn't be any fun doing it [Music] so that's how it starts little Sun little beer and a load of fun Two Fellas staggering in Friday night with a pup tent and eight cases of beer that's eight cases of beer but no food [Music] I first came to a park on the Victoria Day weekend May 24th I just couldn't believe my eyes beer bottles piled up in pyramids four feet high beer bottles ringing the campsite two complete rings and remember our sites average 40 by 50 feet drink too much and can't handle it they take on a completely different character well just a moment ago as Mischief becomes a torrent of abuse and a release of anger and frustration a large group becomes rowdy and a few guys who need to show off start the vandalism so off they go through the parks like I heard a wobbly baby elephants who just can't help bumping into things knocking them over and smashing [Music] you don't need a guide to follow these elephants long the trail of empty bottles and past the picnic tables that somebody's overturned or whittled with a knife or even started chopping up for a fire there picnic tables are talented things you often find ones that have jumped over a cliff or gone for a swim in the Rapids of the lake and not to be outdone partitions fly off their hinges in Comfort stations [Music] Windows break and doors smash [Music] oh once our gerd house saw what a good time everybody else was having and caught fire out of Sheer Envy burned right down the next night the Vault toilet threw a fifth and ended up over an inside out of action and useless to everybody it's not hard to follow the trail of the baby elephants dollar damage is one thing what really sets me off is the vicious brutal damage to the park itself and don't these people know that if you girdle a maple tree and remove a foot of bark all the way around the tree that tree's gonna die or that the sapling they trample will never wear a green Crown to shade somebody's picnic or maybe give a little privacy for some cuddling oh they're a real Fun Bunch my baby elephants now that's not quite what you think if you need to use the Comfort station and find it's a massive Jagged porcelain certainly not which is a is it hotter and whooping and screaming with four and five in the morning these Jokers don't need a park or a campground we could put them in a cornfield or Gravel Pit they'd have just as much fun they forget that a party and a park is nearly the same as one at home in the city there are no walls to hold back the sound and there's actually less space per person on a campsite than in some apartments first-time visitors don't realize some of these things simple things which can be explained beforehand during daylight hours by the visitor service staff now visitor service can't talk with each camper personally but they make sure that everyone gets a copy of our Park Bulletin of course elephants seldom have time to read or they forget what they've read I find their memory improves considerably when I suggest we go back to my office and call their parents for a little chicken so what if it is for in the morning wouldn't dad like to know what a great time Sunny is helling other times I remind the holder of the campsite permit that he's responsible for behavior on the site [Music] and after all you have two ways of dealing with wild elephants you can stop them with an elephant gun [Music] or you can frighten them with a mouse I use the most instead of the gun whenever possible prevention is so much more pleasant for me than enforcement the far less messy [Music] well that may take two hours to evict a site if the occupants are excited you have to do their packing for them [Music] is calling the opp to help with eviction but they don't seem to take down tents any faster than I do foreign off by giving people the benefit of the doubt especially if a cranky middle-aged camper has laid the complaint the first complaint I ever had was from a chronic case complaining that the baby on an excited kept him awake all night and what was I going to do about it as a superintendent I can do anything that's necessary short of changing diapers the parks act gives me the power and authority of an opp officer inside my Park I can arrest people or issue summary conviction tickets which means the person must pay a fine or show up in court to argue his keys I mainly handle Parks act violations but I can enforce all other laws the highway traffic act the liquor acts and laws that apply to the use of marijuana and Other Drugs the conservation officer in the park also has OPP Authority and most of these fellows have a law enforcement background I trust them to handle people and situations on their own or call the opp Detachment just outside the park for support it's a different thing with the boys I hire for security staff in the summer sometimes when they put on the Sam brown belts and the flat hat it changes them completely some of them want to lay down the law that's exactly what they're not supposed to do my father's earlier to watch to report and back up the CEO and the opp [Music] I choose my security staff personally and very carefully after all the amount of sleep I get this summer depends on how cool and level-headed my boys are well talk is Will Remain the best weapon we have but if talk or negotiations break down it doesn't matter if I'm sleeping the boys need assistance almost any kind would usually help [Music] even the moral support of the campers on the next site but adults are seldom helpful other children are usually quite different especially those in the 6th to 11 age bracket they're not afraid to tell an adult you shouldn't throw that in the beach and they're often the ones who identify the people who've done damage to park property [Music] cars are responsible for much of the disturbance the noise and the dirt in the park that's why I insisted my security staff enforced the one car per campsite rule [Music] if all additional cars have to be in the parking lot it cuts down not only on traffic but on the number of visitors a site gets [Music] visitors cause a good deal of trouble you just can't get them to leave at 11 o'clock when their passes expire especially if they're mixed in with the campers that's why we had bulldozers in here three years ago to make separate roads for the campers and the day users campers now turn right day users turn left and with the help of a Gatehouse in between never the twain shall meet I hope while the bulldozers were here the park these honors made some changes in the layout of my grounds I have nearly 700 campsites which used to be laid out in just two areas it was open like a frying pan activity in one corner would attract flies from all over well the sites are grouped in clusters of about 100 each with lots of buffer area between the Clusters that helps isolate the trouble and cuts down noise in fact we even turned one of the sights over to the kids families can still Camp there if they like but they know I tolerate a little more noise in the youth section than in the Family Campground but even these changes can prevent some situations especially if an aggressive security approach has made people mad noisier and meaner than they were I remind my security staff that a campsite Rampage is a little like a forest fire you shouldn't go in at its peak unless you have to and then you should be well prepared But first you will always find some people who are playing miserable no matter how you treat them I find this with most of my repeat offenders I mean they're not your average Dickie do bird lovers these guys their idea of fun is doing damage and getting away with it whether they're stealing a case of beer off a picnic table right under the owner's nose or carving a monument of Destruction for everyone to see or harassing some guy by making passes of his girlfriend sooner or later I catch one of them but don't get me wrong I'm not after convictions [Music] I don't want my staff to earn medals which would make life miserable for the peaceful majority as well as the unruly minority I'd rather clean up the results of vandalism and time to time and have my security staff Patrol the park with walkie-talkie in one a club on the other hardcore Solutions only create Hardcore problems because once you've set yourself up as the tough guy in the park there's always going to be someone around to challenge your title to see if you can still float like a butterfly and sting like a bee that's why I still believe the best way to avoid trouble is to prevent it before it starts it's easier to make a house nearly Fireproof than it is to extinguish The Blaze [Music] prevention is the reason why every night around 8 we have a show of force around here like you wouldn't believe every vehicle is out patrolling the park roads and every uniformed staff member is out being seen and noticed remember sure the guys I kid you hey Yogi I love your cute hat that they know you're there always preferred talk to eviction but I'd rather have an eviction than a conviction mean I'm happy when my staff can talk these Jokers out of mischief [Music] but once you've warned them they're going to be evicted there's no more talk you evict and when you've threatened them with a ticket you write the ticket a half of the church is laid last year in provincial parks came under the liquor act usually I get the local OPP Detachment to lay charges and see the case through the courts at the start of each camping season I visit the sergeant to make sure he understands my problems and he knows me personally you just can't beat Personal service I've also built up good credibility with the local judge because he understands my problems we have a lot less liquor abuse than before now I'm all for better training of the seasonal staff the better trained our staff is the more experienced in handling people the less need there is for regulations that affect the majority of cameras and the better campers understand the reasons for our few rules the better the cooperation will get from [Music] foreign ly it's only the cooperation campers give me and all the other yogis it's going to make this park a great summer community thank you [Music] thank you foreign