Humbug-and-run pickup driver wipes out dozens of St. Vital family’s front-yard Christmas inflatables

It would seem the angry — or, perhaps, gleeful — driver responsible for the carnage was determined to let the air out of Christmas.

St. Vital resident Jason Czmola said a Grinch behind the wheel of a pickup truck wiped out half of the 69 inflatable seasonal figures that were minding their own business in his front yard early Wednesday morning.

“I’m still very irate,” Czmola said Thursday. “If you lose control of a vehicle, 99 per cent of people would knock on the door. But that didn’t happen because this was deliberate.”

Czmola said he was sleeping Tuesday night and was awakened by a noise, followed by a crash.

“I thought my son had fallen out of bed so I went to check him, but he was fine,” the deflated homeowner said.

“Then I noticed the nine-foot snowman in front of my window wasn’t there…. I looked outside and it was in two pieces. That’s when I saw the others.

“I ran outside and saw the tire tracks and I thought, ‘Are you f—king kidding me?”

Czmola said he called 911 but, because the pickup truck was gone and no one was injured, the dispatcher referred him to the police non-emergency number to make a report.

“I have the guy’s door handle,” he said. “It must have fallen off when he drove right across a stump in my yard. He will certainly need to get (a wheel) alignment after that.”

Bradford Wallace, who has a large Christmas display on his front lawn in Garden City, said he doesn’t understand the reason for the vandalism.

“At first I thought it was a joke when I heard about it on Facebook,” said Wallace, who received permission from the city to put a series of lighted arches across the public sidewalk in front of his house. “But then I saw it — why? Just why?

“This was definitely on purpose. There’s no other reason. And when an inflatable costs a minimum of $35 to $40, there’s a lot of money involved. Hopefully somebody will come forward who saw something. A lot of people (are) driving around the city to see these displays.”

Czmola said it’s the second year he populated his front lawn with Christmas-themed inflatables.

“My son, who is six now, wanted a minion (one of the bright-yellow animated creatures featured in the 2015 film Minions),” he said. “Then he wanted the other stuff. It grew from there.”

Czmola said he hopes that somehow police find whoever crashed through his display.

Some Winnipeggers have already brought him replacements.

“A lot of people are upset about it,” he said. “On the (Facebook site) showing the most wonderful sites for Christmas displays, I was in second place before this happened.

“Now the guy who is No. 1 doesn’t want to be No. 1 anymore. He wants me to be No. 1 because of this. I just don’t know why someone would do this.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca