What’s With The ByWard Market Ticketing? MULVIHILL
City of Ottawa bylaw officers are killing businesses in the ByWard Market.
According to Roger Chapman, director of the city’s bylaw and regulatory services department, tickets are issued as a means of protection.
However, Chapman also said that bylaw officers exercise discretion and might provide verbal warnings. Really? Perhaps Chapman might want to consult with businesses in the ByWard Market before he expresses another opinion.
Several businesses have complained that bylaw officers are: “Just ticketing like robots and that’s the business killer.” Some owners and managers have resorted to sending a staffer as a lookout for the approach of a bylaw officer. A small delivery order can render a $130 ticket. Unfair perhaps?
Unloading a delivery truck takes time. Is it really fair to businesses for bylaw to pounce when those officers clearly know that these trucks have no other delivery option available?
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe hired nightlife commissioner, Mathieu Grondin, to ramp up interest in the ByWard Market. If that is his role, this isn’t exactly a good way to go about creating a positive and productive working relationship between the city and businesses.
Either Grondin isn’t doing his job or Sutcliffe isn’t doing his. Either way, one or both of these gentlemen need to have a serious conversation with Chapman to cut businesses some slack and back off the ticket quota.
Or … is this just another cash grab by the City of Ottawa?
Donna Mulvihill is a community activist and former hospital coordinator.
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“Either Grondin isn’t doing his job or Sutcliffe isn’t doing his” OR, MORE LIKELY, neither is doing their job.
This is terrible. We are seeing more and more hyper-aggressive bylaw. Remember the northern lights and the bylaw ticketing people in parks taking pictures of nature’s light show? And they say they use discretion?
When times are tough and times are changing it’s always best to go after the ”low hanging fruit”.
There are basic ‘business’ fundamentals at issue here. Retailers need to receive goods to put on the shelf. Restaurants need to receive food to make meals with. Commercial organizations need to receive office supplies and equipment to use in operations. All of the above need customers or clients or visitors. Not all of these suppliers and customers can arrive by public transit, irrespective of the (woeful) quality of the service provided by OC Transpo.
Parking regulations need to be designed to accommodate these users. Suffice it to say that precious few of those who populate city hall have the real life experience to understand these basic requirements. As such, we have the combination of parking regulations set by people who are incapable and unwilling to understand the real life requirements of the ‘users’ and a set of by-law officers that are unofficially incentivized (quotas anyone?) to prevent those basic requirements from being met.
The starting point is to listen to the merchants and other employers who populate the ByWard Market area. At no point is a lecture due on how the merchants and other employers must adapt their business practices to meet the ideology of those who craft what passes for city policy. And therein the problem lies. The culture at city hall is driven by ideology. The culture at city hall is incapable of actually listening. The culture at city hall is not capable of not lecturing.
Good points all, Ron. Additionally, we need to adjust our lives in preparation to withstand the threat growing from south of our border. This is not a time for Canadians to be quibbling amongst ourselves over parking tickets perpetrated by an over-zealous city hall. Rather it’s time to adjust our thinking and see the bigger picture.
The issue here, if there is one, is not the zeal of the bylaw enforcement officers but rather the bylaws they are required to enforce. Those bylaws have, in some cases, been put in place to control parking in the Market and other areas so that people can’t hog a parking space for hours thereby denying the local merchants the essential parking spaces they need to attract customers. The issue at hand would appear to be an unintended outcome of provisions that were intended to assist local merchants.
What is clearly needed is a review of parking provisions as well as what loading area possibilities may or may not exist. If there are deliveries that are being made to local businesses, they should be accommodated by the provision of specific loading/unloading areas spread throughout the area so they are conveniently available to anyone needing access to them.
If the bylaws are too restrictive, maybe it’s time to approach the area councillor to ask her to look into the issue. In other areas of the city, there are bylaws that restrict deliveries at certain times as well as designated loading areas that are reserved for commercial vehicles and facilitate the delivery and pick-up of goods.
Unless you are proposing that deliveries take place overnight, I don’t see how this has anything to do with the Night Mayor. If, however, this is an issue in other areas of the city (and I suspect it is), then it should fall on the Mayor’s desk with a request that parking restrictions in commercial areas may need to be reviewed.