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 When Marisa and Jason were roughed up at Canada’s Wonderland, park security brushed them off. (Sun Media/Mark O’Neill) |
TORONTO -- This was not exactly Marisa MacLellan's 14th birthday wish -- to be mugged at Canada's Wonderland, then left stranded by security.
"I'm having nightmares about it," Marisa tells me.
Welcome to Halloween Haunt ...
... "Canada's largest, creepiest and most sinister event," says the Wonderland promo.
What better place to mark your birthday. So Marisa's mom, Robyn, 47, drops her and six friends off at the park as night falls last Saturday.
They are all Lake Simcoe kids, a tight group, four girls, three boys. They have cellphones and Robyn kills time just 10 minutes away. What can go wrong?
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The gleeful gang checks out two of the Halloween mazes.
Club Blood: "At the hottest new nightclub in town, they line up to get in, but no one makes it out alive."
Blood Shed is populated by rabid animals and deceased farm hands.
Then things get really scary.
In the lineup for the Behemoth roller coaster, which is running spookily dark, Marisa is accosted by a foursome of 19- or 20-year-olds. Big kids? Young grownups? Punks. Dark hoodies on the two men, bomber jackets on the women.
They accuse Marisa of jostling in line. They cuss her and spit at her feet.
After the ride, the women pursue the girls into a washroom. One of them rifles through Marisa's pockets and asks for money. Marisa catches a glimpse of metal. A knife?
The girls flee, rejoin the three boys and re-treat into an arcade. The four punks corner them among the race-car games. "Got any money, bud?" the biggest thug asks Jason McAskill, 14.
"We thought we were going to be stabbed or shot," Jason tells me. "I mean, we're from a small town where nothing ever happens."
He turns over his last $12. Same for pal Josh and his $5. "You just saved yourself a world of hurtin', " says the punk.
Marisa says she's got nothing, which is true because a friend has her wallet. This angers one of the female thugs -- thugette? -- who elbows Marisa in the chest.
Then they are gone, into the throng. Perhaps her cries deterred them. Marisa and her frantic friends run to the Back Lot Cafe for help.
Okay, so it's not the crime of the century. The loss was $17 and no one got hurt, just scared.
"I don't live in a fairytale world," says Jason's mom, Stacy, 40, a credit analyst. "I know crime exists, but ...."
What's got the parents really riled is the events apres-swarming.
The kids say they told their story to two uniform security guards at the cafe. "That really sucks," offered one guard. But when they realized the kids couldn't ID their assailants, the security men left.
No report. No alert to paid-duty cops on site. No call to the parents. No escort to the pickup area.
"I thought it was a bad dream," says Marisa. "I was pinching myself."
"This has put a damper on my faith in big places like Wonderland that say they have good security," says Stacy.
The parents have filed their own complaint to York Regional Police.
Det. Jim Kalonomos tells me there's a spike in robbery reports whenever Canada's Wonderland is open, especially around Halloween. "It's a hub, where a lot of people gather, so you take the bad with the good."
The park's marketing VP, Dave Phillips, says he's "surprised" by the Lake Simcoe kids' story. "It's confusing that if they actually approached one of our guards, it was passed off.
"Our safety record is impeccable."
He promises to look into it. The parents say they've got the same promise from other Wonderland staff. But no answers. No apology.
Ain't bureaucracy a wonder land?
Says Robyn: "We want the park to be accountable. If seven kids go up to security shaking and crying and all that happens is some guard says "that really sucks ..."
Well, that really sucks.
MIKE STROBEL'S COLUMN RUNS WEDNESDAY TO FRIDAY, AND SUNDAY. MIKE.STROBEL@SUNMEDIA.CA OR 416-947-2265