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Photo by Wayne Cuddington / Postmedia

Neighbour Darren Eke alerted other residents and Somerset Ward Coun. Catherine McKenney via email of what was happening.

McKenney replied to the Citizen that she advised staff of the unsecured power supply – which was not supposed to be fully accessible – and they were on their way to the scene to secure it and clean up the debris if that was determined to be safe.

Eke was pleased by McKenney’s quick reply but his email demonstrated his concern about the incident at the park. Calling it dangerous is “a complete understatement,” he said.

“Mixing and burning chemicals is a hazard at the best of times – by professionals, in a controlled lab,” he said.

“An amateur jacking hydro in the middle of the night to burn chemicals in a public park poses a severe health and safety risk to the individual and the community. What would have happened had there been an explosion, chemical or electrical? How does the city plan on cleaning up the chemical mess now sitting on a picnic table?”



Eke said that Dundonald Park’s strength is in its diversity — it’s used by people of all walks of life to do yoga or tai chi, screen movies and features a kids’ playground.

“Cooking meth in the park doesn’t fit into that equation,” he said, expressing gratitude that police put a safe end to the incident instead of neighbours being awoken by an explosion that could harm them or the drug cooker.

A second neighbour, who did not want to be identified, also expressed concern about the threat to public safety.

“Locking up the hydro box would be a great start,” he said.

Cooking meth in public places isn’t unknown but doing it in the open in a busy urban park rarer.

Last month, two men were arrested and a Columbus, Missouri city park evacuated for hours after police found them unconscious inside a “mobile meth lab” – a car.

In July, police shut down a meth lab in a tent in an Ohio state park.

