Righteous Rossland residents rush to round up rounders

By Andrew Zwicker

Last Friday night/Saturday morning between 12:30 and 1:00 A.M., an alcohol-induced fight broke out on Columbia Avenue near the Best Food Mart. What followed was an incredible act of citizen policing that brought the situation under control and resulted in the arrest of two of the three perpetrators. Ronnie Mah of the Best Food Mart was in the heart of the action and took the brunt of the impact.

"I was in the basement, repairing a couple of electrical things beside the old cooler compressor,” recalled Mah. “It’s really noisy down there, so whatever happens upstairs I don’t know.”

While he was working in the basement, the fight broke out in front of his store with a group of teenagers shouting and pushing each other about. In short order the pushing match broke out into a full fledged fight.

“My friend saw the thing happening and he tried to knock on my door to let me know what was happening but I could not hear it as I was in the basement.”

During the fight between the three teenagers, the big front window on the left hand side of Mah's shop was shattered. As soon as the glass broke the kids took off, running up Washington Street.

“Some good citizens chased them,” explained Mah. “Two ladies chased them up the hill near the arena and they got them. Those two ladies got them good. Then another two gentleman beside them tried to help the ladies. At that time they were all confused, though. They didn’t know who was a good guy and who was a bad guy. One of them escaped but the two ladies held the other two guys down, the two gentlemen at first not knowing who was who, held the good guy. He got a little bit hurt but then after that he understood it and helped them look for the bad guy that escaped.”

The two ladies and two men held the kids down until the police arrived and quickly got them into their vehicle. Following the incident, the officers, with the kids in the backseat, came down to speak to Mah about the incident, asking him whether or not he would like to press charges.

“I said, I won’t charge them because the parents have the responsibility for these kids, not the kids. So I expect someone will pay me, but in my experience I don’t get paid for these kinds of things. I asked the cop permission to talk to the kids for a couple of minutes. The kids told me, 'Don’t charge me; I will pay for it', so I asked them how are you going to pay me? They told me, 'Well I don’t have a job; I have to work for McDonalds for a while before I can pay you'. I said, 'But you have no money. How can you pay me almost $1,000?'."

The cost to fix the window was just shy of $1,000 and as the incident happened on the weekend the cost would have been doubled to have it fixed right away. Mah decided to camp out in the store until the window could be fixed on Monday. Dedicated to his shop, he pulled out his sleeping bag and spent the weekend sleeping in the store.

“Three days I was camping in the store. The first day the air was leaking in and it was a little bit chilly. The second day the window broke and the glass fell out so I cleaned it up and covered it up with plastic. That night I had a good sleep because no cold could come in, but the plastic was so thin the noise was very loud every time a truck went by.”

Come Monday, the window was fixed and all was well again thanks to the actions of a few quick thinking and willing locals in town.

“I really appreciate all of the good citizens that kept an eye on the criminal. When it happened they all jumped into action and I really feel proud about the people that live here. The only thing I want to say is that I really appreciate all of the good citizens in Rossland, and I want to give them a big thank you. It’s good to know that we have good people in this town.”