Another incident of peanut butter suspiciously spread on playground equipment in a city park now has Toronto police involved.

On Wednesday, police issued a press release calling for witnesses to come forward over peanut butter found on equipment around Wadsworth Park.

"I'm not going to say whether it's a criminal act or not. I don't have any indication that whoever did this had a nefarious intent," Detective Jason Hunter of the 11 Division said.

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"I don't have any evidence of [someone targeting children with peanut allergies]."

The incident in Wadsworth Park comes more than a week after city parks staff found a "substantial" amount of peanut butter spread on various playground structures in Dufferin Grove Park. Staff estimated it was likely one jar's worth, contrary to larger amounts reported in the media. Initially, the incident was viewed as minor vandalism – park workers often have to remove food smeared on playground equipment.

"We do have protocol in place for suspicious or dangerous substances," said Matthew Cutler, a spokesman for the city's parks department. "What happened after the Dufferin Grove incident is that we notified all of our staff that, moving forward, peanut butter should be treated under our suspicious substances protocol."

In Wadsworth Park, staff found a similar distribution of peanut butter during a routine inspection of the park. They called police to formally report the incident.

Parks staff have previously responded to reports of peanut butter on equipment in Carlton Park, Perth Square Park and Hillcrest Park, but found those claims to be unsubstantiated.

"I would have trouble believing similar things happened in those other three parks and they just happened to disappear before we got there," said Mr. Cutler, adding that it took a concerted effort to fully remove the peanut butter from Dufferin Grove.

None of the previous incidences were formally reported and the peanut butter was removed quickly by parks staff. Toronto Police could not confirm a connection. This is the first peanut butter-related incident, Constable Jenifferjit Sidhu said.

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"If a child brushed against playground equipment with peanut [butter] on it and touched their arm, could they get a rash in that area? They could. But that would be the extent of it," said Dr. Sandy Kapur, president of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. "What I'm more worried about would be ingestion in some way. A child gets peanut butter on their hands on the playground structure and puts their hands in their mouth – that could potentially cause a more severe reaction."

Roughly 2 per cent of the population in Canada has a peanut allergy. The problem, Dr. Kapur said, is that there is no reliable test to determine which cases will result in severe reactions such asanaphylactic shock.

He advises parents to ensure they wash their children's hands thoroughly with soap and water. Antibacterial scrubs are of no use in this case, but simple hand washing is enough to remove the spread.

It's often young children who frequent parks, said Laurie Harada, executive director of Food Allergy Canada. Herself the parent of a child with severe allergies, she says parents aren't going to be looking for something like that on slides or swings.

Both the parks department and Toronto Police are advising park visitors stay vigilant and report any suspicious activity. Police and the parks department confirm no children have been affected by the peanut butter on playground equipment.

"You just don't go to places like [parks] thinking that you're going to have a gross amount of what your child's allergic to all over the equipment," Ms. Harada said.