More than $2 million in fines issued for COVID violations

Enforcement officers have issued more than $2 million in fines for COVID-related violations in B.C., including one in Surrey last month when police found an international traveller at a private house party instead of a 14-day quarantine.

The individual “was not quarantined as required after entering Canada,” Surrey RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Vanessa Munn said in an email. The traveller and the host were both ticketed and fined.

Those fines are among the 228 complaints Surrey RCMP's COVID compliance and enforcement team responded to in April. Most were in private residences (128) with the rest in businesses and parks or violations of the federal Quarantine

Act. But about 85 per cent of them remain unpaid.

Among tickets issued in April were three $2,300 tickets under the provincial Emergency Protection Act for “non-compliant events” and a $3,450 ticket under the Quarantine Act, Munn said.

Vancouver police have issued more than $113,000 in fines this year, although many calls are handled at the officer's discretion through education and information, he said. But “chronic offenders” are ticketed and “we have executed multiple search warrants and made a number of arrests following investigations into people who have repeatedly violated public health orders,” Addison said.

The tickets are among more than $1 million in fines that have been handed out to almost 1,800 people who violated anti-COVID-19 provincial public health orders since late last summer, according to B.C.'s Solicitor General Ministry.

Most of the tickets, issued between Aug. 21, 2020 and April 16 of this year, were written up for 1,410 individuals who refused to wear a mask indoors in a public place or to follow an officer's direction. Those $230 fines totalled $324,300, according to provincial data.

Another 300 tickets worth $2,300 each were given to those who organized a gathering or event that contravened a public health order, in residences, vacation properties or private clubs, for a total of $690,000.

Another 52 fines of $2,300 each were issued to restaurants or bars that contravened health orders, ranging from playing background music at a level higher than normal conversation to serving liquor past 10 p.m. or before 11 a.m., for $119,600 in fines total.

And 31 tickets at $575 each, totalling $17,825, were issued to individuals promoting or attending a “non-compliant” event, such as a house party.

Those ticketed have 30 days to dispute a ticket before a judge.

If the deadline is missed the offender is “considered to have pleaded guilty,” and the ticket if unpaid will be sent to collections, according to the province's COVID-19 website.

ICBC said 311 tickets issued under provincial public health orders worth almost $140,000, or 12.5 per cent of the total fines, were paid as of May 1.

About 550 tickets are being disputed in court and there are an additional 650 cases where the violators have been found guilty, but fines have not yet been paid.