I recently did a Freedom of Information Act request to the Village Hall regarding complaints from 2009 to the present on infractions of several bylaws, and according to the records there have been during that timeframe the following type and number:
Parking 17 Noise bylaw infractions: 68
Siltation 13
Tree cutting 5
Soil deposit 3
Fire/burning 2
Garbage disposal 2
Total 42
Since the Noise Bylaw infractions form the majority of complaints, if they could be dealt with more effectively it could lead to significant savings in Village enforcement hours as well as a lot less stress on residents.
Lack of effective noise control and other bylaw enforcement has been a sore point in the village, and much of it seems to point to the inadequacy of the current fines for bylaw infractions. Particularly in the case of construction noise from contractors and developers, or soil deposit and hazardous material violations again by contractors and developers, a $100 fine for a repeated offence just doesn’t present a deterrence.
In fact it makes poor business sense for a contractor or developer to stop work even in off hours on a multi-million dollar development if he has a deadline under a contract or, even better, a bonus clause for early completion. If there is no significant financial deterrent to breaking the rules, then we are left to trust solely on the good will of the wolf, so to speak.
The present Anmore Noise Control Bylaw passed in 2004 is four pages long, and in my view it is lucid, understandable, and mercifully short. There was one amendment in 2005 to clarify that property owners, who are allowed to work on their own property (and create work noise) on Sundays and holidays, are not allowed during these off hours to use heavy equipment such as excavators and bobcats.
Under s. 10 of the bylaw any person who contravenes the bylaw “is liable upon summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $2000 and the costs of the prosecution.” Perhaps Tim Harris recalls differently, but my bet is that such a prosecution has never been sought under the bylaw. In fact infractions under most Village bylaws are dealt with by writing a ticket rather than a summary conviction prosecution.
You will not find any reference at all in the bylaw itself to the enforcement avenue of ticketing the offender $100. But if you refer to the 2009 Anmore Ticket Information Utilization Bylaw, you will find that Schedule 4 lays out fines for various violations of the Noise bylaw.
The reader should also note that similar fine regimes for infractions of other bylaws are found in other schedules to the Ticket Bylaw, including:
Fire bylaw $100 and $200 fines
Highway bylaw $500 fine
Parking bylaw $50 fine
Sedimentation Discharge bylaw $1000 fine, the maximum allowed by the province
Soil Deposit bylaw $100 fine, and $200 for “Hazardous Materials”
Tree Management bylaw $1000 fine
Noise bylaw $100 fine, $200 for obstruction
Other municipalities in the region have been creative in how they have set up their fine regimes. Some have progressive fines, such as $100 for a first offence, rising to $500 or $1000 for fourth or fifth or repeat offenders. Some have provision for an offender to pay a lesser amount if the fine is paid early.
So how long would it take, in the case of the Noise Bylaw, for Council to have gone through Schedule 4 (the table reproduced below) and decide how much to up the fines? An hour or maybe two?
SCHEDULE 4
Offence Section Fine
Person who makes noise which disturbs 3 $100.00
Owner/Tenant makes noise which disturbs 4 $100.00
Animal noise which disturbs 5 $100.00
Engine retardant brakes which disturbs 6 $100.00
Construction noise, after hours 7 $100.00
Obstruction of Bylaw Enforcement Officer 9 $200.00
There was a Special Council Meeting on October 21, 2010 dedicated to the Noise Bylaw enforcement issue. A year later and nothing has been done to up the fines. Tim Harris has been put to the needless exercise of attempting to rewrite the current Noise bylaw, twice, and much effort was made to overcome Mayor Anderson’s resistance to citizen involvement in a Working Group to consider Noise Bylaw revision. But it is all a red herring.
The mayor I think finally accepted the idea of a working group to examine the Noise Bylaw, but has steadfastly refused the notion that the working group should examine the Noise Bylaw fines contained in the Schedule 4 of the Ticket Information Bylaw. What is the point of doing anything else than a direct examination of the fines associated with the bylaw, since those seem to be the main avenue for enforcement? Isn’t it in truth a joke to try to enforce a Noise Bylaw against either construction vehicle traffic or the land-clearing and construction noisemakers themselves when the most you can impose is a $100 fine?
So who does the failure to hike the Noise bylaw fines aid the most? That would seem to be the land developers and contractors (and ultimately the realtors who flog the finished product), who would be the ones receiving the big fines under a revised Schedule 4.
But please Madam Mayor and Councillors McEwen and Palmer-Isaak, don’t engage us in a shell game in which residents are encouraged to spend their time in a working group looking at revisions to the Noise bylaw, but are not allowed to consider Schedule 4 of the Ticket bylaw which contains the actual amounts of the fines themselves.