With plenty of sun in the coming days, most people now think of barbecues, terraces or the beach. But at the ice rink in Schoonoord, the board is in its hair. Not because of the heat, but because again burglary was broken into. Chairman Ankie Smilde-Kootstra sighs: “It’s just a shame, and it happens for the second time …”
The ice rink of Schoonoord is hidden in the forest, an ideal place to skate in the winter and apparently also attractive for less fun visitors in the summer. “We have a unit there, a kind of canteen,” says Ankie. “In addition, a toilet car. Last year they also tried to break in, then there was a lot of damage, but they did not come in. Now they have been inside.”
The burglary was discovered on Monday by an attentive member of the hiking association, who was busy setting out routes for the evening four days. “She sent a message that the door of the toilet trolley was open. The back door of the storage area was also bent and then you already know what time it is.”
What exactly the burglars were looking for remains a mystery, because there is not much valuable. “It’s a toilet trolley,” says Ankie. “And in the canteen? There is some ranja, sugar and furniture. They did not enter the main building, but that does not make it any less frustrating. There is damage again, you have to go there, you have to repair things, that takes time and money.”
The perpetrators have taken something in, but what that is exactly, the board prefers to keep private. Declaration has not yet been made, but it will probably come, just like last year.
Next week the ice rink is the place of the start and finish of the evening four days and that makes it extra annoying. “You want everything neat,” says Ankie. “And now it is just waiting to see if the door still wants to be locked, or not open anymore. Not really ideal.”
Yet the board does not let itself be out of the field. “We try to repair it ourselves, at least it doesn’t cost any more money. But it just stays that it happens.”