It has been a difficult stretch for Saskatoon’s Purrfect Cup Cat Café over the last month when it comes to vandalism.
On Monday, the café had their windows smashed for the second time in 30 days.
Sydney Sylvester is the owner of the café. She said she doesn’t understand why this keeps happening.
“Exactly like last time – we come in on a day where we’re closed to work with the cats and we pull up to the parking spot out front and I see the window (smashed),” Sylvester said.
“I just started crying. Coming back to this for a second time in two weeks is so frustrating.”
Security footage provided to Global News shows a suspect kicking the front window of the shop before moving on. The video can be viewed at the top of the page.
“At this point it feels targeted now,” Sylvester explained. “Same window, same spot, and it looks like the same person.”
The vandalism is sparking more discussion about downtown safety in Saskatoon. Sylvester said it is starting to impact their ability to provide a good experience.
“It affects our ability to expand and provide more things for our cats,” Sylvester said. “So, it’s a big setback, especially for a small business.”
In a statement to Global News, Downtown Saskatoon executive director Shawna Nelson said more focus needs to be placed on policing the area to ensure it’s served to capacity.
“We are equally disappointed for this business owner — the same crime twice in a row is more than a frustrating business expense,” Nelson said. “With the Fire Community Support + Alternative Response Officers programs not operating at full capacity in staff-count nor hours, the Downtown business community is not being serviced to capacity.
“Downtown Saskatoon has its issues, just like other cities: we need more focus on policing the area.”
Saskatoon police say reports of vandalism are higher downtown but they’re working to allocate more resources to the area.
“We have seen an increase in social disorder calls across the city. There were nearly 72,000 calls for service in that category for 2024,” Tonya Gresty, with the Saskatoon police said.
“8,000 of those calls were specific to the downtown core. Vandalism is something that we’re paying attention to and having our resources focus on for sure.”
Following the previous vandalism, the café received an outpouring of community support and donations. It ended up being enough to cover the cost of the window and then some.
Sylvester hopes the kindness continues and the hate stops.
“We have started a GoFundMe campaign because we are trying to raise $25,000 to get some more funding so that we can move, so that we can fund renovations and a bigger space,” she said. “And that’s going really well.”