It’s time for homeless campers to “move on” from Victoria Park, says Peterborough County Warden J. Murray Jones — but one camper said she’s unwilling to go.

“They’d better have a stick of dynamite to get me out of here, because I’m not leaving,” said Shelley Edwards, 46, as she smoked a cigarette outside her tent on Wednesday.

On Aug. 14, county council will consider a new bylaw to prohibit camping in Victoria Park.

Since July 1, a homeless encampment of about 40 tents has set up in Victoria Park after the Warming Room shelter closed.

“I think we’ve been very patient and compassionate in not kicking them out,” Jones said of the homeless on Wednesday. “But all things come to an end.”

Peterborough Police patrols have been stepped up in the area around Victoria Park since Friday, following a double stabbing late last Thursday night in the area.

A couple living on Water St. in an apartment overlooking the park heard the noise that night.

Alex and Anna, who didn’t want their last names used they for safety’s sake, say they moved into their new apartment in late June — and they will likely move if tent city threatens to return next summer.

The couple say there’s yelling all night in the park, there’s discarded syringes around their building and people have sex outside their tents in the park.

“They think it’s a two-star, free resort,” Alex said.

In the park on Wednesday, Edwards said police have been “harassing” campers by shining strong lights inside tents at night and issuing tickets for smoking cigarettes in the park.

Edwards said she’s racked up $1,000 in tickets over smoking.

Dylan Ward, 27, has been living in the park since the start of July.

He said he’ll go pitch a tent elsewhere in the city if he’s kicked out of Victoria Park.

While the city has opened emergency shelter beds in the lower-level auditorium of the Peterborough Public Library, Ward won’t go there.

Homeless people are locked inside the library for the night, he said — and he has anxiety and doesn’t want to be locked in.

Dan Hennessey, who’s also been living in a tent in the park, says that’s why many of the homeless people won’t use the library beds.

“You’re taking someone with mental illness, who may have spent time in jail, and you’re telling us, ‘You can’t leave,’” he said.

Next Monday — two days before county council considers its bylaw — city council will meet over a draft bylaw to curb camping in municipal parks.

There have also been small homeless encampments outside city hall and at Riverside Park.

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In addition, tents are pitched on the property at St. John’s Anglican Church.

Rev. Brad Smith wrote in an email to The Examiner on Wednesday that he needs to know more about the bylaws before he can comment on how the church will respond.

The city’s draft bylaw is to be published on the city’s website Thursday and the county’s draft goes online Friday.