FILE PHOTO - "Police only" means just that, as a Penticton driver found out when he decided to use the Penticton RCMP detachement police lot as a shortcut between city streets. It was one of many crimes across the Thompson - Okanagan that really didn't pay for the perpetrator in 2016.

(STEVE ARSTAD / iNFOnews.ca)

Cities in the Thompson and Okanagan regions had no shortage of oddball crimes in 2016.

Bike theft was a dominant headline in several of the region’s cities in 2016 but Kamloops RCMP got 12 back at once on July 13 when they apprehended a suspect wanted on a breach of probation order. He biked to a Nelson Avenue residence where he jumped a fence - right into a backyard containing 11 old bike frames, at least one of which police were able to confirm as stolen.

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In August, a Kamloops charitable organization turned over a number of donated items to the Kamloops RCMP, items which included ammunition, brass knuckles, swords, knives and a pellet gun.

Kamloops RCMP had a suggestion for the donating public: drop items of this nature off at the RCMP detachment rather than donating such dangerous or illegal items to a local charity.

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Kamloops police recovered 150 pounds of gunpowder stolen from a gun show in Kamloops on April 23. The gunpowder was found when police spotted two stolen vehicles outside a Brocklehurst neighbourhood home, arresting a 21-year-old Surrey man and a 33-year-old Kamloops woman.

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So much attention was focussed on the theft of two bike repair stations stolen from McArthur Island and Riverside Parks in Kamloops in February that thieves couldn’t do anything with them, according to city spokesperson Glen Cheetham.

The stations were found abandoned at two different locations in the city on Feb. 12.

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A Vernon police officer was probably thinking “not since the ‘70s,” when referring to an incident in that city in late January. Const. Jocelyn Noseworthy of the Vernon RCMP said “It’s not something we deal with every day,” with regard to reports of a man "streaking" around a Vernon intersection on Jan. 27.

Noseworthy said the incident posed a danger to the public and the man because of the distraction it created for the many motorists in the vicinity.

The man was arrested without injury.

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A Vernon mechanic found himself in trouble after taking a joyride in a customer’s 2015 Corvette in November.

The car’s owner had taken the vehicle into the shop for a wheel alignment when the mechanic was stopped by police for driving 70 kilometres an hour over the posted speed limit. The car was impounded and the mechanic given citations for excessive speeding and failing to produce a driver’s license.

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A man who broke into a Vernon woman’s home added insult to injury when he stopped to make himself something to eat during the break in, a Vernon court heard in late January.

Joshua Gerald Gunnlaugson, 34, earned an 81 day jail term after the female homeowner found the man in her house on Nov. 16, 2015.

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The discovery of a barrel stuffed with marijuana on a North Okanagan backroad last June had North Okanagan RCMP anxious to find the barrel’s owner.

Whoever owned it had been making anonymous calls to forestry consultant companies in Salmon Arm who worked on the Kingfisher Forest Service Road where the barrel o’ pot was found, asking for its return.

The RCMP said in a press release it had the 11.5 kilograms of marijuana, inviting whoever owned the contents of the barrel to “please feel free to come and see us."

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A couple of Okanagan businesses were quite possibly “cheesed off” when thieves broke into their quarters in 2016.

Penticton’s Newstead Distribution Warehouse was targeted by thieves twice during the year, overnight March 14 and again overnight on Sunday, March 27. Fresh and frozen dairy foods, an air compressor and several thousand dollars worth of dairy foods were taken in the heist.

In Kelowna, thieves made off with a dozen boxes of Black Diamond cheese in an early morning break in at Lakeview Market on Jan. 27. Bolt cutters were used to gain entrance to a fenced compound, where the hinges of a cooler were cut for access to the cheese.

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In February, a Penticton driver found an expensive shortcut through the back parking lot of the Penticton RCMP detachment, an area restricted to the public.

He was also talking on his cell phone as he used the detachment lot to cut between two Penticton streets.

It just so happened there was an officer in the parking area who stopped the vehicle, further discovering the man had an expired driver's license and an altered license plate.

He was fined for not having a license, altering a license plate, using a cell phone while operating a motor vehicle and failing to obey traffic control devices.

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A Penticton shopper let a bad day get the best of her when she was unable to return some lights without a receipt at Penticton Canadian Tire.

The woman assaulted an employee and stole two plants before driving away, only to turn herself into police later in the day.

No charges were laid in the incident, and the woman returned the two plants.

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Penticton RCMP were called to aid a man in distress after he was bear sprayed early on Aug. 4.

Police arrived on scene to find a naked man scrubbing his genitals with milk, obviously in great pain. He told police he was walking home when bear sprayed by three men, but police ascertained the spray pattern on the man was consistent with the victim carrying the bear spray and having it go off unintentionally.

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Kelowna police arrested a man suspected of robbing a Kelowna bank on April 11 after seeing the man standing outside the Kelowna RCMP detachment.

An RCMP investigator spotted the 26-year-old suspect and arrested him shortly after the robbery.

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A Kelowna driver was arrested and held in custody in early June after Kelowna RCMP caught him three times within a week for impaired driving.

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A Kelowna man entered guilty pleas to trespassing and mischief after security footage allegedly recorded him having sex with a woman in a stranger’s hot tub on May 25.

The pleas were made in late November after video surveillance showed the man and a woman drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and having sex after walking on to a property on McDougall Street in Kelowna, checking for the residence’s occupants before climbing into the hot tub.

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