Lambton OPP says it is investigating a hate crime alleged to have taken place overnight Saturday at the Petrolia and Enniskillen Fall Fairgrounds.
Chris Tripp, who owns Truckin Mamas On the Run with his mother, said he arrived at the food truck Sunday morning where it was parked for the weekend fall fair.
“Somebody through the night had tied a noose with a Pride flag in it, hung it on our propane tanks with a brick on the other end – basically saying I should be hung and thrown in the river,” Tripp said.
He called the OPP and said late Sunday afternoon officers had been to the truck “numerous times. They’re taking it very seriously.”
Among the first people to approach him to express support were officials from the Petrolia and Enniskillen Agricultural Society which organizes the annual fair.
“We are not happy with what happened,” said board president Kelly Humphrey. “This isn’t who we are.”
“I hope they find the people that did it and they get punished,” Humphrey said.
Tripp said police told him they are going door-to-door and checking surveillance video from the area around the fairgrounds.
Lambton OPP asked in a Twitter post Sunday that anyone with information about the incident call the OPP at 1-888-310-1122 or Crime Stoppers.
Tripp said he has experienced many incidents “over the last 15 years but this was the one that was probably the worst.”
One of the previous incidents was earlier this year when someone confronted the food truck operators because of a Pride flag they were flying at truck where it is regularly parked in Petrolia’s Bridgeview Park.
Tripp posted a photo of the noose on the food truck’s Facebook page Sunday morning and it had attracted more than 100 comments of support by late afternoon.
“It’s about community awareness,” Tripp said. “It’s about making sure that our youth are safe. That’s all I care about.”
He said, “I don’t care about me. I’m 47 years old. I can take a lot.”
But Tripp, who lives in Petrolia and grew up in Watford, said he doesn’t like the impact the incidents have on his family “and everybody else who has to hear about it and deal with it.”
“It’s a small handful,” he said about the source of the hate behind the incidents. “A community is built of a lot of people. . . there’s a lot of good people out there,” he said.
The previous confrontation over the Pride flag resulted in a fundraiser for DiversityEd Safer Spaces Canada, a Sarnia-based organization working to create and maintain safer, inclusive and equitable communities for 2SLGBTQAI+ children, youth, adults and their families, Tripp said.
“Make something good out of something bad,” he said.
“I’m tired of this happening” Tripp said. “Is it going to stop me? No. We just keep doing what we do.”