A condemned barn at the Beban Park fairgrounds got a partial demolition ahead of the VIEX this weekend as a car drove through two of its walls.
The driver told the News Bulletin that she was heading to volunteer at the garden centre when the car accelerated rather than reversed, crashed through the building and into a mini donuts concession stand. No one was injured.
The driver said she realized there was no available parking, so she tried to back up, but instead of reversing, her car accelerated down the hill. She tried pumping her brake, but the vehicle didn't stop until it hit the concession. She added that she has been driving for 42 years and this was her first accident.
"She came flying through the barn … I managed to jump out of the way," said Caleb Ryall, who was pressure-washing the concession stand at the time.
Michelle Solloway, social media and marketing director at the Vancouver Island Exhibition, said the exhibition will be going ahead with no major impacts.
"We mostly used the barn for storage so we're going to have to do some shuffling of stored items but we will have it fenced off and ready to go before Friday, so it should not impact the fair at all," she said.
Solloway said the barn is one of several that were condemned last year and demolition was planned in the coming year.
"I guess this just speeds up that process and we can start planning our new building sooner," she said. "We had originally planned to build a big agriplex type building for multi-purpose. Given that since the pandemic, prices have gone up quite a bit, we're going to re-plan and re-adjust, but there will be new buildings, new barns and we will rebuild again."
