Fined for ciggie but ratepayers get burned

FOR more than 12 months, Scott Anthony Dalziel kept a black garbage bag of CocaCola cans filled with cigarette butts in his car.

He considered them “evidence” he didn’t chuck lit darts out the window of his ute while driving between jobs in Burleigh Waters on May 30, 2016.

But Dalziel became the butt of the joke yesterday when a Southport Magistrate disagreed.

Dalziel’s reasoning for keeping the cans was simple: “I keep the Coke cans, where I put my cigarette butts. I ash out the window but I do not throw my cigarette butts out the window,” he told Southport Magistrates Court after pleading not guilty to littering.

“The day I received the fine, I started keeping the cans.”

However, after the black garbage bag of about ten cans filled with used smokes was tendered as evidence during the one-day trial, Magistrate Mark Howden found it could not compete with the photographic evidence provided by the $1500-per-day Gold Coast City Council barrister.

It also did not trump the testimony from a council enforcement officer who caught Dalziel in the act near Bermuda St about 3pm on the day in question.

Mr Howden said he did not find the bag of cans of “much relevance” given Dalziel, who was self-represented, began collecting his portable ashtrays after being issued with the penalty infringement notice.

Mr Dalziel was fined $300 – $65 more than a littering ticket. He was also ordered to pay the council’s filing fees of $92.90.

The council argued he should also pay its $1500 legal costs but the request was refused and ratepayers will foot the bill. Outside court Mr Dalziel told other smokers to be “careful”.