The owner of Thai Fusion in West Kelowna was forced to close after years of vandalism. He is opening a new restaurant in downtown Kelowna this weekend, May 11, 2018.

Image Credit: Submitted

KELOWNA – Luke Sumpantarat still doesn’t know who vandalized, shot up and tried to burn down his successful West Kelowna restaurant over the course of two and a half years, but if the vandal wants to try again he will have to come to downtown Kelowna.

Luke and his wife Ess are holding a soft launch of their new restaurant, Thai Terrace Restaurant and Lounge, this weekend in the space previously occupied by Wings across from City Park.

Luke is hoping the highly visible location will prevent the nonstop attacks that forced him to close Thai Fusion in West Kelowna last year.

Luke and Ess thought West Kelowna would be the perfect place to open a Thai restaurant in 2010. With very little competition, and the skills to create dozens of delicious, authentic Thai dishes they hoped to become a fixture on the West Kelowna dining scene.

By their fifth year in business, they were making a solid profit and looking to the future.

That all changed the spring of 2015 when a vandal smashed the front glass causing hundreds of dollars in damage. Luke replaced the windows and reopened, but it happened again in August and twice more in October.

Luke was fed up.  

He released video footage of the man he says was responsible for the damage, which over two and a half years would run into the tens of thousands of dollars.

In the video he released, a lone man wearing a dark jacket and light-coloured pants runs up to the restaurant just after midnight on Sunday, Oct. 25. His face and head are covered and he appears to be wearing gloves and carrying an aluminum baseball bat.

He takes 14 swings, trying to break every window, but several of the panes are too strong for him and he only manages to break eight.

Things only got worse after that.

Just after midnight on April 26, the back windows of Thai Fusion were smashed out, again by a masked man wielding a baseball bat.

“A car drove up to the back of the restaurant, one guy got out wearing a mask and carrying a baseball bat and a can of spray paint,” Luke said at the time. “He graffitied the top part of the window and smashed in three bottom windows.”

Luke says the vandal spray painted something about a debt he supposedly owes.

“It’s something like ‘Pay what you owe’. He tried to make it seem like we owe them money but the only loan I have is to my mother and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t do that,” he says with a laugh. “We don’t have any enemies that we know of.”

Luke has some suspicions who is behind the attacks but is giving RCMP time to investigate before he starts making accusations.

“I think (the suspect) is just trying to damage our reputation,” he says. “The intention is to make us look bad.”

The windows of Thai Fusion in West Kelowna were smashed by an unknown vandal multiple times in 2015 and 2016.

Image Credit: Submitted

Thai Fusion would be attacked three more times in 2017, first with fire at 2 a.m., Oct. 12 and twice more with a gun at around 5 a.m. May 28 and June 2.

No one was there when it happened but bullets penetrated Luke’s protective metal window shutters and lodged in chairs and walls.

For the safety of his staff and customers, he decided to close.

“We do this with a heavy heart and no small amount of apprehension, but the time has come, after so many attacks of vandalism, for us to make a concrete decision,” said a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page, June 3. “The attacks on our restaurant have merely grown so steadily that, at this point, we cannot and will not risk the safety of our wonderful customers or staff.”

Now, less than a year later, Luke, his wife and his staff are opening a new restaurant on the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Abbott Street.

“We are just looking forward to moving on,” he says. “We’re happy to be back doing what we enjoy."

West Kelowna’s other Thai restaurant, Sukho Thai, also closed in the last year, and Sumpantarat welcomes their customers to Thai Terrace.

“We appreciate West Kelowna customers coming over,” he says. “We're using the same cooking techniques that made us successful at Thai Fusion."

They are open for business starting this weekend, May 11, and will hold a grand opening once their liquor licence is approved.

If you have any information that may help identify the man who vandalized Thai Fusion, call Kelowna RCMP at 250-762-3300, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or text to CRIMES (274637) Keyword: ktown.

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