Edmonton’s courthouse has once again been hit by vandals, who this time made off with the hall of justice’s metal signage.
Visitors to 1A Sir Winston Churchill Square this week were greeted with empty facades where the words “LAW COURTS” once appeared in large metal letters. Those entering across from Edmonton City Hall were met with an empty concrete monolith bearing the ghostly outline of the missing letters, while those coming off 97 Street saw what appeared to be a half-finished Wheel of Fortune board, with only “1a Sir -i-sto- —r–ill S-u-re” left behind.
A spokesperson for Alberta Infrastructure confirmed the letters had been vandalized, though Edmonton police had not received any report of the theft as of Thursday.
“The Government of Alberta is aware that signage has been removed, not as part of regular maintenance, from both the east and west entrances of the Edmonton Law Courts building and work is being done to replace the signage as soon as possible,” the spokesperson said in an email.
The spokesperson did not say when the theft occurred, or what material the signage was made from.
The sign theft is the latest vandalism to the Edmonton courthouse. In 2024, someone smashed the doors of the 97 Street entrance with an axe. More recently, the government replaced nearly all the glass panels on the building’s west side, which for months had been covered up with plywood following another glass-breaking incident.
Vandalism in Downtown Edmonton has been on ongoing issue, with the city reporting a spike in graffiti and damaged property in the wake of the COVID pandemic.
Metal theft has also been a longstanding problem given its resale value as scrap. In 2018, a man was sentenced to eight months for selling stolen plaques honouring military units in Edmonton’s Griesbach neighbourhood. Similar thefts occurred in 2020, with thieves also targeting memorial benches on Victoria Promenade, which led to at least one arrest.
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