These guys might need a lesson in tact.
Our friends in the city’s bylaw department stepped in it last week, when they dropped off an inspection notice at a Cornwall home on Second Street West advising the owners that they could no longer keep signs on their property advertising a worm business.
A neighbour had complained to city hall, suggesting signs advertising the sale of worms (by children no less) contravene a municipal bylaw prohibiting commercial sales on a residential property.
Sigh…have city officials forgotten that big fat rink debacle last Christmas?
That was the one where the Vincent family erected a sweet-looking rink on their Monaco Crescent front lawn that just happened to impinge on the municipal right of way. The story blew up into a national rallying cry for the preservation of the great Canadian game.
Here we are, six months later, and the city’s bylaw department is stirring the pot once again – with the help of an angry neighbour who complained.
Last winter I suggested the city, grudgingly, made the right decision in requiring the rink boards be removed from the Vincent family rink. But has the city not learned a little bit about how to deal with something as innocent as mom and apple pie…like little kids selling worms in the dog days of summer?
Of course the city is within its rights to send the family a notice suggesting if the signs aren’t removed fines of $240 a day will be on their way. The signs are breaking the rules… and if I file a complaint at city hall, I sure as hell expect it to be addressed promptly and professionally.
In this case there was a sign on the front lawn, and apparently another one on the house, advertising the sale of worms. The children could often be found digging up the wriggling little rascals and selling them later for a small profit.
No one is suggesting the kids can’t sell their worms, but putting the signs out was enough to see a complaint filed at city hall.
Where I think this thing falls off the rails is not the fact that city hall responded (it had to), but how it addressed the issue, and the timing of the response. Dropping off a letter late on a Friday afternoon, without so much as a phone call, can be perceived as being heavy-handed.
It sure looks that way to me.
Perhaps it would have been better to meet with the family, or give them a call, and advise them of the rules and that a complaint had been filed. If that avenue had not worked, then I supposed sending written correspondence is the next step.
But city officials confirmed Tuesday that the protocol is to file a written notice of inspection following a complaint. So, by the book, that’s what was done.
What happens next? Just your garden-variety social media poop storm where the city gets tarred and feathered…again. This time I think the city needs to be told its protocols lack some serious bedside manner.
Just because you’re breaking the rules, or in this case the law, doesn’t necessarily mean you deserve a letter with threats of massive fines.
Is it too much to document the complaint internally, and have a bylaw officer advise the offenders by way of a phone call or a home visit to explain the situation, without the pomp and circumstance of sending a written warning?
I know there are cops, all the time, that pass by children playing street hockey out in front of their homes. Streets are not meant for hockey games, but you never hear of cops issuing tickets for such an infraction.
Most of the time an officer will simply have a chat with the players and the game will be moved to a park…case closed. The same thing happens, on occasion, when you get pulled over for rolling through a stop sign, going 10 km/h over the speed limit or jaywalking in the big city.
It’s called discretion, and I think the city missed the boat on this one. Not because the bylaw people broke their own rules, but because they followed them.
Let’s face it, the city had to know there was the potential to open a big old can of worms (see what I did there?) on this one…what’s more innocent than kids selling worms? This thing is a PR nightmare.
But to have protocols in place that immediately required written warnings to be filed (in this case at 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon) only paints the city in a bad light.
Those rules need to be changed, because we now have two cases where the city’s bylaw department has been called out for being too over-the-top.
The rules are in place for a reason and I support them. But operating in a vacuum, robotically following protocols for addressing complaints with offenders, needs to change.
You can bet the next time bylaw officers file a written warning, the offenders are going to scream bloody murder too, in hopes of garnering public sympathy.
Maybe a courtesy call/meeting before the written notices go out will quell the issue before it takes on a life of its own…again.
