Employees of Aqua Friends Pool and Spa in Kelowna had a very different kind of customer checking out their selection of hot tubs on Tuesday, May 20.
A member of the family business, David Morgan, tells Black Press Media that staff were frightened on Tuesday when a bear entered the store, jumping over one of their hot tubs before cruising through the hallway.
“(My wife) started screaming bear, bear, bear! So I got up, looked over, and it was just walking past my desk. It went by my desk to the hot tub section and jumped inside a Max Spa,” said Morgan.
Morgan said the bear got scared when it jumped into the window. The bear then quickly made an exit, running across the street towards Orchard Park Mall.
Working with his wife and daughter at the time of the incident, the family is happy that everyone was unharmed and that there were no customers in the store.
“It was wild, but we are just grateful there was nobody for the bear to chase,” said Morgan. “We often have our grandchildren here running around.”
Kelowna RCMP received multiple calls about the bear roaming around Orchard Park Mall.
According to police, officers located the bear in a nearby orchard and determined it was not posing any danger to public safety.
“We didn’t receive any further reports of the bear coming back into residential neighbourhoods or visiting any businesses,” said media relations officer Cpl. Steven Lang.
Black Press Media has reached out to BC Conservation Service for comment.
This isn’t the only close encounter with a bear caught on video in the last week. In Smithers, a video is making its rounds on social media of what appears to be a tourist feeding a grizzly bear.
There are several short clips of a man, who also flashes his boarding pass in one scene, allegedly feeding a carrot from a vehicle and then it appears he gets out and tries to feed the grizzly an apple.
Sergeant Matthew Corbett of the Conservation Officer Service said he can’t speak to the incident beyond the fact that they are aware and there is an open investigation.