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Warnings for quad plows over the top

I consider myself fortunate to not only live in St. Albert, but to live in a beautiful older neighbourhood in the Grandin area.

I consider myself fortunate to not only live in St. Albert, but to live in a beautiful older neighbourhood in the Grandin area. The majority of the houses on my street were built in the early 1960s and what is really one of the charms of the crescent is the fact that several of the homes are occupied by the original owners and some are even occupied by the children who grew up here, then eventually moved back and bought houses here.

For those people I don’t know, they still give you the friendly wave when they pass you by. It‘s the kind of neighbourhood that you feel lucky to live in. It’s the kind of neighbourhood where when it snowed quite heavily recently, the one neighbour who had a bobcat cleared a considerable amount of the street and another neighbour ran his snowblower up and down the sidewalk while still another who has a plow on the front of his truck, etc.

As there are several elderly residents on the crescent, this makes a big difference for them as well as the rest of us who also benefit from neighbourly generosity. This Sunday when I was out I noticed a couple of guys on their quads with plows mounted on them doing some clearing around the neighbourhood. The street is pretty quiet on a regular day and on a snowy Sunday there is almost no traffic. They weren’t together, just a couple of neighbours doing a good neighbourly turn.

Then I watched the bylaw officer arrive. He got out and talked to the one fellow then went up the street and spoke to the second gentleman. After he left I talked to the fellow who was still around and was astounded to hear that the bylaw officer informed him it was a $250 fine for riding a quad in the city and it could also be a $250 for putting snow on another’s property. The officer then directed him this was a warning to cease and desist otherwise he would be fined. Then the officer left.

In the six and a half years my family has lived here, I can count on one hand the times I have seen a neighbour on his quad. It’s always when there has been a big snowfall and he is clearing some snow for his neighbours, not for money but because he can. Maintaining and enforcing bylaws is an important component of a well-run community as long as those enforcing them are intelligent enough to temper the enforcement with discretion.

I am pretty confident no complaint was made in this instance as none was mentioned and the officer was simply performing an area patrol. I am left with a bad taste as to how the bylaw officer affected my neighbourhood today and feel it was an example of some inappropriate, even somewhat ludicrous enforcement on his part.

Peter Coates, St. Albert

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