[Community_garden] theft prevention

[yarrow at sfo.com]

Do you have any signs posted? We have a sign at the entrance 
welcoming people to walk around the gardens, and saying that picking 
is not allowed. The sign also says it's a misdemeanor, which means we 
can call the police if we do see outsiders picking. I think we now 
have the "no picking" sign in 3 or 4 languages. And, since my garden 
is near the entrance, I'm still asked if the food is free, if it's 
grown by the city for food banks, or if I take care of the whole (150 
plots) garden. Last year I heard of someone who would regularly visit 
the garden to poach, and one of the gardeners used to follow him, 
cell phone in hand, while she called the police, and then he'd leave 
soon after.

If you have electricity, maybe a motion-detector sprinkler/light at 
night would work? (or maybe that would get stolen too).

As a long-term strategy, events in the garden that would involve more 
of the surrounding community could create goodwill and more eyes on 
the street looking out for the garden. Simple things -- a 
seed-starting talk, face painting for kids, whatever activity would 
be popular and fun in your community.

At 9:25 AM -0400 7/23/08, Ian Kinross wrote:
>Hello community gardeners,
>My name is Ian Kinross and I am the volunteer coordinator of Thorncliffe
>Community Garden in Toronto.
>We have plots for about 100 residents (and their families) of a
>multicultural, high-rise neighborhood in Toronto's east end.
>I would appreciate any advice you have on the issues of:
>-- safety
>-- theft prevention.
>In particular, any best practices, and anything to avoid. I would
>appreciate hearing about solutions that have worked well to minimize
>theft.
>We've had a number of thefts this year, and would like to step up
>efforts to prevent them. Thefts may come from within and outside the
>garden.
>Any information would be helpful.