If city council approves a change to the Use of Roads bylaw, a night out on the town may bring more than a headache and compromising Facebook pictures. Revellers could also wake up with a $300 fine if they don’t watch what they say and how loudly they say it.
The amendment was proposed by Rideau-Vanier Coun. Georges Bedard. If approved, it would prohibit loud, boisterous behaviour and indecent language on the city’s streets.
Bedard says the request for the change came from a safety and security committee that includes police and residents. He also said the amendment would give police and bylaw officers a much-needed tool to deal with unruly behavior.
The proposed amendment has been in place since 2003 in city parks and facilities. Bedard said the nuisance bylaw has been effective in those parks, so it should be extended to the streets.
“Right now, we can control nuisances in the parks but as soon as they leave the parks and go into the streets there is nothing we can do,” says Bedard.
But, according to the city’s chief bylaw officer, Lynn Anderson, no one has ever been ticketed under the parks nuisance bylaw.
Anderson says the city needs the change to make up a legislative gap that has prevented officers from dealing with large groups of people who linger on sidewalks in areas of the Byward market and Centretown after the bars close.
Bedard says the proposal is important because bylaws currently only regulate noise violations, otherwise the police need to use criminal offences like public mischief or public drunkenness.
“Using the criminal code is not a suitable approach.We don’t want to criminalize people for simply causing a nuisance,” says Bedard.
The nuisance amendment has the support of the Hintonburg Community Association and the Byward Market BIA.
Somerset Ward Coun. Diane Holmes says she is thinking of supporting the amendment.
However, she says that if many of her constituents oppose it, she will vote against it.
“In Centretown we often get complaints from residents who live on the sidestreets off Elgin after the bars close,” says Holmes.
She says that the proposed amendment could be effective even if the police never actually use it to lay charges.“The threat may be enough.”
One group challenged the amendment at the meeting, saying it is just another attempt to regulate panhandling and cleanse the downtown of homelessness.
Andrew Nellis of the Ottawa Panhandlers Union says the proposal is unacceptable.
“The police will use this law to cast a wide net by criminalizing standard behavior, then they’ll excuse this behavior from people they don’t want to catch, like the nice middle class, and they’ll enforce it against people they do want to catch,” he says.
Nellis told council that if it approves the amendment he will challenge its constitutionality by shouting obscenities in front of city hall.
Gloucester-South Nepean Ward Coun. Steve Desroches voted against sending the amendment to city council. He says he thinks the city already has enough tools to regulate inappropriate behavior and that the bylaw’s language seems nebulous.
Holmes says that Desroches’ opposition to the amendment stems from the fact that his ward is quiet and suburban and that he doesn’t appreciate urban problems.
Holmes says she expects the amendment to be approved because most councilors have entertainment districts that create the problems the new law would seek to address.
Council will vote on the amendment next week.