You’ve always got time for Tim Hortons. Even, apparently, when you’re a deer.
How else could you explain why a doe crashed through the window at a Tim Hortons location in Kitchener on Monday?
It happened around noon, at the restaurant on Victoria Street North near River Road.
Glen Leroux was working in a nearby carpet store when the deer made its presence known.
“All I (saw) was just some legs running by,” he said, “I didn’t think nothing of it.”
Inside the restaurant, customer Sid McLean’s first thought was that something had blown up in the kitchen.
Once he saw the deer “staggering” around inside, he realized what had really happened.
“Everybody was running for cover,” he said.
“I guess the deer lost its way. It came through the window and never stopped. Once it got to the washrooms, there was no place for it to go. It turned around and it was heading for the other window.”
McLean said he saw “three or four” people try to bring the animal under control at that point.
By the time Gary Boes, an inspector with the Kitchener-Waterloo Humane Society, arrived on the scene, his officers already had the situation under control.
He said the deer “suffered a very serious cut to the neck” and was put down at the scene.
“There wasn’t anything that anyone could do for it,” he said.
It was not obvious where the deer had come from. The area around the Tim Hortons is primarily commercial and industrial, although it is not far from the Grand River.
While the incident drew a huge response online, McLean was more prosaic about it.
“Those things happen at times,” he said.
The restaurant was closed for part of Monday afternoon as employees cleaned up broken glass and other damage.
Later in the afternoon, it had reopened with one window boarded up. A spokesperson for Tim Hortons said that it had been “thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.”
With reporting by Leena Latafat
