Suspect arrested in vandalism at Maple Ridge tea shop, RCMP say
This screen grab from a surveillance video shows a man kicking the window of a store in Maple Ridge.
Two months after a Maple Ridge tea shop was targeted in an alarming act of vandalism, authorities have identified a suspect.
Surveillance video captured a man dressed in black smashing the front window at T’s Once Upon a Tea Leaf in the early morning hours of Sept. 7, approximately one year after a similar incident forced the small business to close for weeks.
Ridge Meadows RCMP said officers arrested a 47-year-old suspect in connection with the latest incident on Friday. He has since been released on the condition that he stay away from the shop.
It remains unclear whether the two acts of vandalism are related.
“This is still an active and ongoing investigation and no further information is available at this time,” Ridge Meadows RCMP said in a news release Thursday.
During the previous incident, on Sept. 21, 2023, some managed to break the windows of T’s Once Upon a Tea Leaf and toss a smoke signal pyrotechnic inside, coating the shop, furniture and products with orange film.
Owner Taryn Stephenson said the person recorded trying to smash her window again earlier this year appeared to be holding something in his hand. While the individual did not manage to break through this time, Stephenson was left worried it was another attempt to do serious damage to her business.
"That destroyed everything that we've worked for,” she told CTV News at the time. “From our products to our fixtures, down to the pens and Post-It notes – it all had to be thrown away.”
The owner said she has no idea why her shop would be targeted, but that the vandalism would not discourage her from running the business she’s been building for nearly two decades.
"We're not going to go anywhere, but it's terrifying," Stephenson said.
Ridge Meadows RCMP asked anyone with information that could assist investigators to call the detachment at 604-463-6251.
With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Lisa Steacy
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