Tickets put teeth in bylaws

Judging by the subsequent letters to the editor, I hit a nerve with last week’s story about the city’s dismal record of penalizing people who fail to keep their sidewalks clear of ice and snow as required by law.

To recap: The city said it issued a grand total of one such ticket under the Good Neighbour Bylaw in all of 2017 and just four in 2016. The city also noted, however, it had issued about 150 warnings during that timeframe and those usually got the job done without the need to write a ticket.

The story also included quotes from Penticton man James Readman, who has raised the issue in letters to the editor imploring people to keep their sidewalks clear for safety reasons.

That was the point of the story: The most important reason to keep your sidewalks clear is to make them safe. And the job of keeping people honest falls to the city’s bylaw team, which, for whatever reason, doesn’t see writing those tickets as a priority.

What is the team’s priority? Panhandling, it seems.

Consider that while the bylaw department wrote just one sidewalk ticket last year, it handed out eight to Paul Braun for causing a nuisance by asking for spare change outside a store on the 200 block of Main Street.

By all accounts, Braun is polite and doesn’t get in people’s faces, so his panhandling can’t be deemed a safety issue.

It’s fine to warn people about dangerous build-ups of ice and snow on their sidewalks, but at some point the city has to make a point. A couple of $100 tickets would get people’s attention faster than a warning.

Obviously I’m not advocating for a police state, but laws are meant to be enforced. Otherwise, what’s the point?

As an added bonus, the revenue from those sidewalks tickets would come in handy for a city that is raising taxes, water rates, power rates, sewer rates and now has its sights set on a new levy for storm drains.

Stay tuned for much more on that one in coming months. On an unrelated note, I hope you’re enjoying our new columnists as much as I am. I’m still interested in adding someone who can write regular, sharp analysis of local issues. If you’re that person, please contact me at editor@pentictonherald.ca. Joe Fries is the city editor of the Penticton Herald