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Scarborough vandalism A suspect who appears to be holding a hammer is seen destroying Christmas inflatables in Scarborough. (Supplied) <\/p>\nA display of inflatables that had taken years for a homeowner to build were destroyed in an instant after being slashed with hammers and knives. <\/p>\n
A gaggle of Grinches stormed Scot Patriquin\u2019s front lawn in Scarborough, Ont., earlier this week, leaving behind a literal display of a deflated sense of Christmas spirit.<\/p>\n
Several masked vandals were caught on the doorbell camera early Sunday morning popping Patriquin\u2019s Christmas inflatables that were on display in front of the home.<\/p>\n
Scarborough vandalism A suspect who appears to be holding a hammer is seen destroying Christmas inflatables in Scarborough. (Supplied) <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople drive by, they stop their car, and they get out, take pictures, and I just assumed it was one of those. Suddenly, my son, you know, shouts that, \u2018No, they\u2019re popping the inflatables,\u2019\u201d Patriquin recounted to CTV News Toronto.<\/p>\n
One suspect appeared to have been armed with a hammer.<\/p>\n
The vandalism occurred hours after Patriquin put the finishing touches on the family\u2019s inflatable display, which has been a tradition for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we came outside, we saw that they had catastrophically destroyed every single one of the inflatables,\u201d said Patriquin, who was left angry and devastated following the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally just at a complete loss of understanding as to why anyone would do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The inflatables include the typical cast of Christmas characters: a 20-foot Santa, Rudolph and Frosty. It\u2019s a display that Patriquin described as a labour of love for his family and community, as he said it took him 25 to 30 hours to set it up.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/LHJ7KBB7QZGALAXUSGOPYSZ5CE.png\")
Christmas display <\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s make it awesome, and let\u2019s give all the kids in the neighbourhood something to come to,\u201d he said. \u201cThey took away something that represented a neighbourhood tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of his neighbours said the community was sad and devastated to learn about what happened.<\/p>\n
Patriquin, not deterred by the incident, said he will try to put up another display.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to see if we can get it up and get it together. Most of these are beyond repair,\u201d Patriquin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t let people who are trying to like destroy joy. We can\u2019t let them win.\u201d<\/p>\n
A local retailer has offered to replace the destroyed inflatables.<\/p>\n
Toronto police have not released any details about the incident but told CTV News Toronto the suspects would face mischief charges if caught.<\/p>\n
With files from Alex Arsenych<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A display of inflatables that had taken years for a homeowner to build were destroyed in an instant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-339387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}