A CASSOWARY Coast service station manager was forced to shut his doors for a day in a mammoth clean-up effort after teenage vandals allegedly broke in and caused $40,000 damage.
The youths allegedly forced their way inside the United Petroleum’s Silkwood service station about 3am on Sunday on leaving its manager of three years shocked and in disbelief.
The manager, who asked not to be named, said when he arrived at the service station at 5.30am Sunday, his initial thoughts were “it’s all over, it will never return to normal,” such was the damage.
“There’s break-ins and people steal maybe some food or drinks; that’s normal,” he said.
“But I’ve never seen anything like this. They broke in through a glass window and cut themselves so there was blood everywhere.
“They opened cat food and threw it everywhere, and inside the fridges. I was nearly vomiting.”
While insured, he said the value of property damage was in excess of $40,000 and included written off mini fridges, a commercial oven, computers, printers and the fuel console system as well as food and drinks which had been opened and scattered everywhere.
The service station remained closed most of Sunday during a clean up effort and the manager said at first he was unsure he would be able to reopen at all.
“If there’s another (incident) like this, that’s it, I’m done.”
The alleged vandalism included damage to the security system’s hard drive, which the manager had given to police.
Extracted from Cairns Post