The Almost New Store, like so many other businesses around Dauphin, has been experiencing an increase in vandalism. Store Manager Janie Galloway says they hope that getting the word out to the community will help with the issue.
"It's been really bad, we've had donations dropped off on weekends and it gets looted, vandalized, they, make a mess of it, and we have a disaster to clean up in the morning."
Galloway says people have also been dropping off their garbage behind the store, and the cost to get rid of it is piling up.
"They are leaving couches, hide-a-beds, they're leaving mattresses, dirty things that we can't use for our program here. So we have to hire people to haul it to the dump, and then we have to pay dump charges on top of it for them to accept the garbage. It's costing us a fortune, it's making a mess, we're paying staff to clean this up, there's glass everywhere, it's really bad."
To help with the issue, the store is asking people to only make drop-offs between 10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. so they can bring the items in right away.
Security camera footage from the Almost New Store.
