It isn’t taking long for the shelves at Country Corner Donuts to empty these days.
Boston creams, Bavarian chocolates, walnut crullers and all 36 of the landmark Regina coffeshop’s doughnut varieties are barely making it out of the oven in the morning before they’re boxed up and out the door.
While owner Vuong Pham says he will sell out on an average day, he adds the rush of support in recent days is unprecedented and began after his store windows were targeted with racist graffiti and vandalism.
Pham says the first of the recent string of incidents happened a few months ago when one of the shop’s south-facing windows was shot at with a BB gun.
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He says about three weeks ago a large rock was thrown through a different window facing Broad Street.
Then, last Monday, he showed up to work in the morning to see three windows covered in racist graffiti, the hateful messages reading “f- you China”, “go back to China” and “eat rice”.
Pham says the while the racism was overwhelming, support from the local community has been even stronger in the response.
One customer of 25 years called the graffiti “disgusting”.
“He’s been hit many more times over the years. It’s unacceptable,” said Don Pixon, who called Pham a “great, community guy who supports local as much as he can”.
Another, an employee of Western CML Cleaners and regular at Country Corner, cleaned the graffiti off the windows for free after seeing it last Monday.
Pham opened Country Corner Donuts in 1989, 10 years after moving to Saskatchewan from Vietnam.
When he first arrived, he did “everything” to make ends meet for he and his family, including washing dishes, working as a janitor, a cook, a welder and more.
The Pham family also runs a convenience store in Regina but the doughnut shop, open seven days a week, is now Vuong’s main focus.
He says he’s not going to let the recent incidents break that stride, but adds that the racist messaging is more concerning than the other vandalism.
“I’m an easy guy. Those people will come and go. You can’t react too much,” he told Global News, saying he is now in contact with police.
“But this time I think they have to do something because they tied in race.”
He said he doesn’t have any outward-facing cameras, though, which makes investigation more difficult.
In response to a request for comment, a Regina Police Service spokesperson said they’ve received reports of four separate incidents at the business, starting in August.
They say the reports came in Aug. 10, the night of Sept. 30-Oct.1, the night of Nov. 14-15, and the night of Nov. 28-29th, and the incidents involved “a rock through a window; holes in a window from a BB gun, a large chunk of concrete through a window; and this latest one is graffiti with anti-Asian slurs”.
The spokesperson said they currently don’t have any suspects, but encourage anyone who may have witnessed or have any information about any of the incidents to reach out to police or Crimestoppers.
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