This newspaper has learned that last Thursday (Oct. 15), two days after the Buffalo City Council passed a resolution calling for the downtown Canalside concerts to be moved somewhere else because of complaints from
nearby Marine Drive residents, a lone vandal reportedly wearing a yellow Sabres hoodie slashed tires on 25 vehicles in the parking lot of the Marine Drive Apartments.
“It did happen,” confirmed Joe Mascia, the former elected tenant commissioner on the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority. Even though Mascia is currently suspended from that position, tenants still call him with complaints.
We called Mascia after receiving an email from a tenant about the tire-slashing incident. Here is what she wrote: “Two BMHA Marine Drive employees, separately, told me that 25 cars in the Marine Drive Apartments
parking lot on the night of Thursday, October 15, had their tires slashed. One or more of the vehicles was a BMHA or BMHA staff vehicle.”
The email continued that the slashing occurred after the council passed a resolution to ask Canalside to consider moving the concerts away from Marine Drive Apartments and out of Canalside because of Marine Drive tenant complaints about noise, vandalism, urination and use of vulgar language on apartment property.
According to the email from the tenant, “while Marine Drive tenants do complain about the events, it is possible there are also complaints by the condo owners; and more importantly, the complainers may be the scapegoats because the city fire and police departments may be having difficulties securing the area when thousands are here.”
The email said tenants have to sit in their cars in clogged traffic on Erie Street trying to get to an entrance to the Marine Drive parking lot when the concerts and fireworks draw thousands, creating fears if there were a fire or medical emergency in the apartments.
Mascia said the tire-slashing vandal went to work before 11 p.m. last Thursday during a Sabres home game, and that extra security is now in place to try and prevent any future acts of vandalism. .He said it was impossible to know if the council action on the Canalside concerts was a factor in the tire-slashing spree, but maintaining security has been and is a problem at Marine Drive.
Calls to B-District police failed to confirm any reports of tires slashed. Identifying ourselves as the press we were told only tenants of the building could ask for that information.