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People do this to the Little Free Libraries that dot our liberal neighborhoods. Especially when they proliferated during Covid. The solution was, for the tenacious, just to rebuild and restock it. Eventually they got left alone. But, a couple churches got old newspaper machines and filled them with food and hygiene supplies, left them around the neighborhood for the folks who have trouble stretching their budgets. Every morning, all the bags of cereal would be exploded across the street, the macaroni and dry goods would be scattered on sidewalks, canned food thrown against rock walls. Or it’d just all be taken at once, and the machine tipped over. They stopped doing those.
Little free libraries are awesome. I love putting stuff in there and seeing it’s been taken & replaced. I put a lot of zine type stuff in them. The thought of people destroying them just for giggles or because they personally oppose them is sickening. It’s free books and food! You have to be a monster to oppose that.
When you are shit is easier to cope if everything around you is also shit than making an effort to be less shit.
This is pretty much the solution. Just rebuild/restock.
I have a little library that also contained snacks. It was always used by the neighborhood kids. Camera attached too. The first few weeks, books all over the ground or all the snacks taken. And the cameras pointed to a few homeless people.
But after three years (and constant maintenance), I now even see the homeless be respectful and take only the snacks they need.
It doesn’t feel good to turn the other cheek those first few times, trust me. But now it’s a part of the neighborhood and other neighbors even come and add snacks.
I’m so disappointed in people. It’s more than a few bad apples that spoil a bunch.
There’s like a dozen of the little free libraries within a half mile of my house and I love it
My city has a bunch of those free food boxes scattered around and I’ve never seen the vandalism like you’re talking about. I wonder if there’s a difference in environment that could be causing that. I bet if the churches kept stocking them and not giving up eventually the vandalism would stop just like it did with the little free libraries
Little Free Libraries were actual grassroots things, this is obviously a corporation trying to squeeze into a new market by offering the first one free (because the city is paying for it).
If I’m reading the side of this thing correctly, it requires an app to get the ball out which means using it opens someone up for potential legal/money issues if they get blamed for using the balls. It looks like a trap to me, and I’m not someone who already had to deal with stuff like being blamed for damage to those rental scooters or other app tracked things.
Always disappointed, never surprised.
I really don’t know what would posses them to use glass instead of a metal mesh to begin with but I guess that’s beside the point here. Those look more like display cases tbh
Dude can piss through mesh.
Happy cake day!
I don’t want my stuff to get pissed on, but I can at least still take it home and wash it.
Or glass with wire mesh in it - security glass
Why do we need to be able to see through it anyway? Seeing through to the inside just makes it more of a target.
They clearly dont even have a locking mechanism, they are literally just shelves.
This country desperately needs a functional mental healthcare system.
Mike “the knife” Harris is the person you should thank for the state of ontarios mental health care system
I looked it up and apparently this company installs these lockers that have different balls in them. So if you go to a park with a court and didn’t bring a ball you can still play if you get the app and check one out. It seems like people just stole the balls.
I could tell just by looking at the photo that this was done by someone without balls.
get the app and check one out
So it’s not free. You pay with your privacy and data.
It probably starts free. You create a market and then start selling it as rental equipment, or you market to cities. They are making money.
Can’t say I’d blame anyone for destroying them then. No doubt the app collects your data. There’s no reason I should have to pay for the locker once with my taxes, then again with my data. Net positive for the world, imo.
Why do you have to use an app to unlock it? There doesn’t seem to be any functional reason for it
It’s canadian tire, so data collection is the reason for the app
Yeah. I don’t think this is too hard to parse, nor is it likely to be some cogent political protest.
- New flat surface attracts graffiti.
- Within a short time, someone else breaks the glass to get access to the balls because they can’t or won’t use the app.
There could easily be an element of “fuck that app,” but the “reward” here is access to a basketball while at the park. I think Occam’s razor is an appropriate initial framework.
It also looks like the city was prudent and avoided a major investment of tax money.
It’s sucks. I use them, very handy. I think they should replace the glass with a metal door and use LED to indicate whether the balls are there nor not.
In my neighborhood the city just gives out a bunch of free balls to kids and there’s enough floating around that nobody feels the need to steal one. No maintenance cost, just the bulk price of basketballs once a year.
This is why we can’t have nice things
Are they shitty or stuck into a corporate hellhole that only reward antisocial behaviours so they could get ahead for the 1$ per hour promotion ?
I saw a guy tell a girl who was kicking the perspex “glass” of a bus shelter to stop it and she genuinely didn’t seem to understand why. We had to explain to her that breaking things is not okay.
Perhaps the vandals are sending a message they’d prefer their tax dollars be spent more productively?
I can’t help but feel there’s a ton of missing context here.
Who makes that point with $16 a playground basketball?
No, this was surely someone stealing the equipment. If someone just wanted to send a message they wouldn’t take the equipment
Tbf that’s a decent use of tax money imo, and I’m the only one I know complaining about taxes being wasted.
I’m also an (ex) vandal, so I have some perspective I suppose. It’s likely that the tags on the side were done for normal tagging reasons, “I exist, everywhere you look in this city you’ll see my name, yadda yadda,” and they may have tagged the windows, but the real destruction of the windows was likely some very angsty teen who feels like they have no control of their life (and unlike the taggers) their anger makes them channel it into pure destruction rather than the “destruction” with the paint that creates art.
Personally, I love creative destruction, destroying something to create something new is always interesting to me, be it graffiti or an art installation made of old broken CRTs or something, but pure wanton destruction out of anger is a waste imo.
step 1: buy 3 cheap balls and a display case step 2: photoshoot in the park step 3: farm wholesomebait karma on socials step 4: smash case and remove balls step 5: 2nd photoshoot in the park step 6: farm rage karma on socials step 7: ??? step 8: profit!
Context?
Edit:
BrrdShrrmp@lemmy.ca was kind enough to provide the context:https://www.mississauga.ca/events-and-attractions/parks/borrow-sports-equipment-in-parks/
You must be at least 16 years old to join Equip Sport.
Also it requires an app, and it has the following text too:
If you don’t return equipment, the email address associated with the session will no longer have access.
This is just about as shitty a free service can be, strict limitations and harsh punishments. A ball can get lost, and if that happens, you’re out.
No wonder that shit was vandalized. IMO they were too soft on it.Thanks. 👍
You must be at least 16 years old to join Equip Sport
Big fail, no wonder that shit was sabotaged.
Be careful suggesting there’s missing context. You might summon the downvote brigade lol.
I finally got the context, and it’s no wonder that shit was vandalized. I don’t see a reality where it wouldn’t be.
Even here in Denmark that shit would probably not last long, and we are famous for NOT doing that.
If you want, see my post you responded to, I’ve included the details there.
I would guess that the City of Mississauga has installed public equipment lockers for people to store their things in, and within days, all of them had broken glass because someone has stolen the equipment stored inside by other people.
But I’m just guessing based on the picture. I wouldn’t expect the context to be much different, tbh.
Can’t imagine they would be personal-use lockers, especially not with doors that display the contents. Have to imagine that they were no-lock ‘lockers’ to hold common-use balls & gear out of the weather when not in use.
I suppose they could be rental/honor-box - insert quarter to get ball, please return when done, but I don’t think I’d call that a ‘locker.’
Oh, you are right. There seems to be some text on the outside. Might’ve been just some equipment to borrow.
Ok, it might need more context :D
public equipment lockers
I don’t get it, why would such lockers be labeled “Jumpstart bon depart” and Equip at the bottom?
Looks more like some private thing, taking up public space.
IDK, I’m just trying to evaluate if this is just mindless vandalism, or if there could be a reason behind it.
The pole itself is not vandalized and seemingly neither is the trashcan behind.Be careful suggesting there could be nuance. Lots of people in this thread just want to be angy
Apparently the “service” is only available for over 16 year olds.
This is so badly executed it’s no wonder people got pissed.
Thanks, I was not aware that clicking the thumbnail revealed a lot more detail. 😳
But it seems to me this “system” is pissing some people off, because the vandalism is only on the “lockers without locks” whatever that is called. And not on the poles or the trashcan?I might’ve been wrong, see other replies to my comment. It might’ve been some kind of honor equipment rental, where you can borrow sporting equipment, instead of it being a locker for people to store things in.
But the context of the post is basically the same. City did something nice, people vandalized it :D
Seems to me the city did something for show that doesn’t work, and might as well no be there.
As I sted before, the poles and trashcan are not vandalized, it seem like these “lockers” were clearly targeted, probably because it’s a shit system for the people it was supposed to benefit.
Hopefully after this, the city will stop wasting money on a system that doesn’t work anyway.
