Laura Power
Northern News Services
Published Monday, January 14, 2008

COPPERMINE - The community of Kugluktuk turned off the music recently after some of local youth vandalized the recreation complex.

About four or five months ago, the hamlet began holding dances Friday and Saturday nights, which became very popular with the town's youth, bringing in about 80 to 100 people per dance.

"They were pretty busy," said Mike Konstantinou, acting wellness co-ordinator for the community. "We had to increase the staff there just because (of) the amount of kids that were in there."

But recently, when more staff had to be hired just to deal with the problem of vandalism, the hamlet decided to take a tougher stance and take away the weekend activity.

"The toilets were just plugged with toilet paper and other stuff - other types of garbage," said Konstantinou.

He said the graffiti in there was typical graffiti that could have been done at any time, and the bathrooms were the main problem, especially the ladies' where there is a long row of toilets that would be clogged up.

"It just became such a huge clean-up issue, and so we decided to shut down the dances ... and spread the word on why we're shutting down the dances."

The dances were shut down right before the Christmas break, when the community games took place at the recreation complex. Now that the ice is in the complex, other activities such as skating have begun as well.

"It hasn't been that much of a loss because since the dances have been cancelled, we've had other activities and the complex is still very busy with people," he said.

But Konstantinou believes eventually, the kids will want the dances back.

"I know the kids enjoy the dances. It's a place for them to go to hang out," he said, adding "people actually do dance there, too. It's not just a hang out."

But when it came down to it, he realized the janitors hired to clean up at the dances were not meant to be chaperoning the children as well.

This weekend, a fundraising dance was planned at the complex for a men's hockey team.

"We're also trying to put the dances in the hands of other organizations," said Konstantinou. "They would have to provide their own chaperones."

He said unless organizations would like to oversee the events, the town is considering scaling the dances back to once a month.