Pendleton Parks & Recreation has closed some city park restrooms after vandals destroyed toilets and tore a stall door from a wall.

City officials said the vandalism has been a problem for a number of years and it is not getting any better.

Interim parks director Donnie Cook said his department on multiple occasions closed restrooms at Trailhead Park, Roy Raley Park and Brownfield Park because of repeated vandalism. He said the recent repair bill for the restroom at Trailhead Park, where culprits smashed porcelain to pebbles, could come to $200, while he estimated repairing the door at Roy Raley Park at $2,000.

Cook has been working with the parks department since 1991 and has always encountered vandalism, he said, but it has been more “violent and destructive” in recent years. Pendleton Police Chief Stuart Roberts said the destruction peaks during colder months as well as in the height of summer, and the crimes occur in spurts and most happen at night.

Cook said transients disable electronic locks on the restrooms so they can live in the facilities, yank out ventilation fan wiring to charge cellphones and defecate and urinate on the walls. Others rip off and destroy toilets and sinks and spray-paint graffiti across surfaces. Roberts noted some people start warming fires in the restrooms. Drunks leaving downtown bars often damage the restroom in Brownfield Park on Main Street.

The city parks department is trying to combat the ongoing rack and ruin. Cook said staff are repositioning security cameras to get a better look at people going in and out of bathrooms and replacing porcelain sinks and toilets with stainless steel ones. The department also reduced operating hours for the Roy Raley bathroom.

The city caught a group of three or four youth they believed had vandalized bathrooms in the past, Cook said, but there was not enough evidence to prosecute them.

Roberts encouraged anyone who sees anything suspicious at a restroom along the city’s river parkway or in city parks to call police. The vandalism is costly, he said, and timely reports may help police catch any miscreants.