Children in a southwest Calgary community have been at a loss this week after a collection of toys at a local park was the subject of a complaint and removed by the city.

Altadore resident Steven Hines was cycling to work Tuesday morning when he spied a City of Calgary truck at Passchendaele Park and several men stacking toys nearby.

When he passed by the park again that evening, the toys were gone.

“The kids are looking around like, ‘Where’s the digger I was playing with?’ ” Hines said.

“Talk about Scrooge stealing from Tiny Tim.”

The toys were part of a community project run by the Marda Loop Communities Association, which had bought most of them itself, but some had been donated by residents.

The toys included a plastic slide, diggers, trucks and a play house.

“(The owner) could have probably sold that house on Kijiji for $100 but they left it out in the park for the whole community to use,” Hines said.

“What a great thing. Most toys had ‘MLCA’ marked on them. It’s pretty obvious they’d been left there for a purpose.”

Association president Marc Doll said the communal toys had proven popular since being installed in the park in May.

Their disappearance was “annoying as hell,” he said.

“I think its probably overly bureaucratic.”

A city spokeswoman said a resident phoned the 311 hotline on Monday and requested the toys be taken away. They were removed on Tuesday.

Other items and debris had apparently been left in the park, she said.

“(Some) community members have been a little bit upset about that.”

Safety concerns were also a factor, she said.

“One of the toys was an unsecured play structure. That poses a safety risk to children if they use it as a climbing structure.”

The city has no policy for communal toys or other items being left in a public park.

“But we really do encourage park users to take their belongings with them once they’ve finished using a city park,” the spokeswoman said.

Despite the absence of a policy, the community association would have to seek permission to keep communal toys there in future, she said.

In the meantime, the city said the toys would be returned to the community association.

mwright@calgaryherald.com