Five bronze plaques were stolel from Lakeview Memorial Gardens Cemetery in 2019. They were replaced but two were stolen again last week.

Image Credit: Submitted/Kelowna RCMP

For the third time in less than three years, a Kelowna cemetery has lost thousands of dollars worth of plaques to thieves.

Staff at Lakeview Memorial Gardens Cemetery, across Highway 97 from Kelowna Airport, discovered the theft of bronze plaques and plates last Wednesday, Jan. 19. It follows two similar thefts in July and September of 2019.

That’s led acting general manager Vanessa Burma to get quotes for two gates and some security cameras.

“The only entry into the cemetery is, you’ll have to drive by the office and we’re going to have surveillance cameras put there so everybody’s filmed,” she told iNFOnews.ca today, Jan. 26. "They'll be closed except when we have a service."

While the cemetery is not fenced, vehicle access at other points is not feasible, she added.

“Anywhere that somebody could possibly drive, a long time ago our grounds crew put big timbers in the way,” Burma said. “All other access points have been blocked some way or another. They’ve dug a big trench or put a tree in the way or they put cylinders in the way.”

In July 2019, five large bronze plaques were stolen and never recovered.

READ MORE: Thieves make off with bronze plaques from Kelowna cemetery worth thousands of dollars

It cost the cemetery owner, Service Corporation International, $40,000 to replace them. They weighed 500 to 600 pounds each so a vehicle was clearly used to haul them away.

Two of those plaques, measuring three feet by four feet, were stolen last week along with nine smaller plaques (two feet by three feet) and 80 name plates from a memorial book.

Burma doesn’t know the replacement cost of the smaller plaques or the plates but Kelowna RCMP estimated it will cost more than $200,000 to replace everything.

In September, 2019, another theft at the cemetery netted 26 core niche plaques that were recovered.

That was about the same time that 53 bronze grave markers were stolen from Westbank Cemetery.

READ MORE: Dozens of stolen gravestone plaques recovered in West Kelowna

Those were recovered but some had been cut up in an effort to disguise them and sell them to scrap metal dealers. Most such businesses will not buy grave markers.

READ MORE: Stolen West Kelowna gravestone markers could cost $100,000 to replace

At about that same time, six bronze markers were stolen from Naramata Cemetery.

READ MORE: More bronze memorials stolen from an Okanagan cemetery

The only positive thing about the latest theft is that these were plaques mounted on pillars or in a memorial book, not on the actual graves.

“I’ve had lot of calls today and, I think, this time around, the people that had it done before, they’re very empathetic to the situation,” Burma said. “It’s awful. People are ruthless.”

Anyone with any information is asked to call the Kelowna RCMP at 250-762-3300 Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or leave a tip online at www.crimestoppers.net.

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