Organizers of the first gay ski week in the BC Interior winter resort community of Rossland are working with police after a Pride banner was pulled down and several posters appeared during and immediately after the festivities last month.
City councilor Steve Knox is concerned about homophobic posters condemning Pride and its participants that appeared on trees and power poles in March.
But organizer Deanne Steven is downplaying the backlash.
“I don’t think it hampered the event at all. We had a lot of fun,” she says. “It’s a non-issue.”
Few of those attending the skiing and social events saw the vandalism or posters, she notes.
She says she already has plenty of bookings for next year.
Police, however, still want to speak to whoever was involved in the vandalism and putting up the homophobic posters.
“They look like they were printed off the internet, says RCMP Staff Sgt Nick Romanchuk.
“They were taken down,” he adds.
Rossland Pride attracted dozens of participants from neighbouring communities, as well as from Alberta, the Okanagan and Washington state. It featured ski events at Red Mountain and several social gatherings.
The vandalism of the Pride banner also caused damage to the rigging the city uses for special-events banners on its main street.
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