In Kelowna, you can be fined for giving away empties
KELOWNA — Well-meaning people who give away bottles and cans near recycling depots are only perpetuating poverty, Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran suggests.
Rather than donate recyclables to others to claim the refund, people should financially contribute to organizations that try to help the homeless, Basran said Monday.
“What we’re doing (by donating bottles) is we’re enabling the status quo,” Basran said. “I would rather people donate to a social agency that is actually helping people.”
Council voted 6-3 to support changes to panhandling regulations that, for the first time, make it a ticketable offence to give away money, or recyclable items of some value,
to other people in certain circumstances.
People who give away recyclables within 500 metres of a recycling depot could be fined $250.
A stretch of Kirschner Road near a recycling depot is particularly plagued with social problems, several councillors said, with Coun. Brad Sieben saying he had heard of “bottle pimps” who exercised considerable control over who could benefit from the return of recyclables.
Imposing a 500-metre limit for people wanting to give away recyclables will help lessen the problem of large numbers of people gathering near the recycling depot, with all the attendant social problems that brings, Coun. Gail Given said.
“We want to push the folks farther away so we don’t have the congregation,” Given said.
Another change will see drivers who give money to panhandlers on medians at intersections also fined $250, as offering such donations is said to only encourage a form of begging that’s regarded as particularly unsafe and intimidating.
“That’s not a safe situation, and I know it makes people uncomfortable,” Coun. Luke Stack said.
The changes also make it a ticketable offence for panhandlers to follow people after they have been refused money, or to ask for money from within five metres of someone sitting at an outdoor patio.
On the other hand, panhandling can now take place between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., where a previous regulation forbade the practice after dusk. And panhandlers can cadge for change from within five metres of an ATM, where the previous exclusion zone was 10 metres.
Councillors heard from staff that those changes were an attempt to provide some balance in the panhandling regulations, as courts have recognized it’s a legal practice. Municipalities can, however, impose some rules on where and how begging takes place.
The bylaw changes, enacted under the city’s Good Neighbour policy, also require people who want to busk to get a licence or face a fine.
Coun. Ryan Donn was opposed to that revision, saying it could make downtown a less vibrant and interesting place. Critics of the city’s move, Donn said, feared it amounted to “criminalizing culture.”
But Basran noted many other cities have similar licensing requirements for buskers and said that, in any event, most complaints about buskers are resolved by bylaw officers without resorting to fines.
“They’re not the fun police out to kill arts and culture,” Basran said of the bylaw officers.