Robbinsdale Sees Uptick in Community Garden Thefts
After a spate of recent produce thefts, a police camera is now monitoring Robbinsdale’s West Broadway community garden.
The city of Robbinsdale shared a post on Facebook last week asking people not to take produce from other people’s plots. Most of the plots on site are rented by community members for individual use. It costs $25 to rent a plot.
However, the community gardens in Robbinsdale are designed to give community members a place to grow produce if they don’t have the lawn space to do it. A volunteer gardener is often on site to give people advice, and tend to the blue communal plot.
The blue painted plots are available for anyone to take from.
Robbinsdale staff say community members without a plot are free to take produce from any blue painted plot. The problem comes when people take from rented garden plots.
“The consequences will eventually be that we take the ‘community garden’ aspect of it away,” said Matt Bazyk, Robbinsdale’s recreation services manager. “We rent out the final plot and then everything is just a rented plot, is where we might have to take it if it’s not respected and the rules aren’t followed.”
Bazyk said while there’s an uptick now, this isn’t the first time. Last year, produce was also taken at the Lake Drive and Chowen Avenue garden site.
Robbinsdale police installed a camera to monitor the community garden.
