Taber teens target of no-swear bylaw

TABER , ALTA. If I were to swear right now, I wouldn’t get a fine?” I ask.

I’m sitting in the squat brown police station in the Alberta town of Taber with police chief Alf Rudd.

“Please help me,” he says. “Please help me. Let’s be a shining example of that not happening in Taber. Cuss me.”

“S---,” I say. “Damn. And there you have it.”

Chief Rudd does not issue a fine — of course, we are inside, not outside. But he promises to give me a pass if I need to belt out a few in the parking lot.

“Someone who swears, they’re not going to get charged and they’re not going to get a ticket for swearing.” he explains. “It’s the person who is swearing at everybody, standing on the street corner and having a swearing fit, an obscene language fit, a blasphemous fit — whatever you want to call it — and, again, causing a disturbance. That’s when we would go down.”

The no-swearing edict is one of the eminently reasonable pillars of Taber’s new bylaw, he says. Among other things, it forbids residents in the town of 8,000 from spitting, defecating in public, swearing and gathering in groups of three or greater when there is a high likelihood of causing a ruckus.

And, even though the police chief says most of the new community standards have been “copy and pasted” from similar codes in other small Alberta towns, the changes have been denounced by lawyers and civil rights experts.

They claim the prohibitions will not survive a court challenge. Social media are in full revolt, with one Edmonton clique trying to raise money for a party.

Despite this, many townsfolk said they trust the police to uphold the law reasonably: they hope it will help curb Taber’s reputation as a Sunday hub for rowdy Mennonite teenagers.

Under the bylaw, passed by council last month, fines range from $75 to $250.