Oak Bay residents are protective of their beaches, which is why a man hauling off 57 litres of sand caught the attention of one vigilant beach-goer, who called police.
The woman was spending a sunny day on Willows Beach last week when she saw a man filling 10 large buckets with sand and plopping them into his car. Suspicious of the man’s intentions, the woman jotted down his licence plate number and called Oak Bay Police, said police spokesman Const. Rick Anthony.
The man was gone by the time officers arrived — “it’s not like we sent the SWAT team down to deal with a guy taking 10 buckets of sand,” Anthony said — but after some careful reading of municipal bylaws, officers confirmed it is illegal to carry away any grass, turf, gravel, earth, sand or rock from any park or beach.
The licence plate was registered to a North Saanich resident so officers sent a warning letter to the man, saying his actions could have resulted in a $50 fine, Anthony said.
But they’ll let him off the hook this time, since he probably didn’t know his excessive sand collecting flies in the face of Oak Bay bylaws.
“It would be hard to lay a $50 fine for something that is fairly innocuous and you wouldn’t think there would be a fine for it,” Anthony said, admitting he wasn’t aware of the bylaw himself.
Upon doing some research, Anthony found out large-scale sand theft is actually a major international issue, with thieves plundering sand dunes in Morocco and the Caribbean by the truckload.
“People are decimating the dunes of Morocco for illegal sand mining,” Anthony said.
“Obviously, that’s not the case here. He probably wanted it for his garden or, who knows what, maybe for a kid’s sand box.”
