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City of Vancouver fires Traffic Court, turns to garbage for cash
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by steffanileman | May 24, 2011 at 08:52 pm
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After losing millions on bad investments like the Olympic Village, and unpopular projects like the downtown bike lanes, the City targets unsuspecting drivers under a little known bylaw.
Two years ago the City of Vancouver passed a law forbidding traffic court judges to reduce traffic and parking fines. Still not pleased with the judges, the City finally decided to take the law into its own hands, denying suspected offenders the right to legal process at the traffic court. As of February 22nd and very quietly, the City did away with the court system. It appears, however, that the Government of British Columbia is the driving force behind what may be the most blatant case of denying citizens access to the justice system.
In a further attempt to increase parking ticket revenues the City has now turned to garbage bins around Vancouver to help put it in black again. Under a little known bylaw parking enforcement officers, affectionately called Yellow Zombies by the Robson Starbucks crowd, are ticketing unsuspecting drivers that happen to park within less than 1.5 meters of a garbage bin.
One victim of “Operation Garbage Bin” is Fabian M., an unemployed office worker that is on welfare. Fabian, who has a parking permit from the City, says he’s parked at the same spot for 5 years until he was shocked to find that his car had disappeared. “I thought it had been stolen, because I’d parked in a spot that had been specifically marked for parking in a permit parking zone, and I wasn’t blocking access to the mobile garbage bin” He first called the police, and was incredulous when he learned that his car had been towed away at 5:45PM when it was unlikely that the garbage bin would be emptied. There is no “no parking” sign around the spot.
Fabian’s amazement grew when he found out that the impound lot was operated not by Busters Towing that had towed his car, but by the City who collected the $95 towing fee, apparently a joint venture with the towing companies. He decided to fight the ticket, but soon got a call from a “City Screening Officer”. He says the officer blamed the towing on the building management, but urged him to pay the ticket since there’s no traffic court anymore and his chances of getting out of the fine are next to nil. His $50 ticket has now gone up to $100. The City told him he has to pay a $25 administration fee for adjudication, and the adjudicator has no power to cancel or reduce the fine.
I’ve toured around the downtown lanes between Denman, Robson and Burrard streets, and found only one no stopping sign posted by the City with reference to the garbage bin bylaw. Most garbage bins are on wheels. This means that the bins could be moved into an illegal position after a driver has parked.
The other day I asked half a dozen motorists that parked along Thurlow Street if they knew about City of Vancouver bylaw 2849. None of them did.
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at 13:49 on May 27th, 2011
The city of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Vancouver, and the BC government putting the screws to their citizens? I'm afraid that is no surprise. But they should both be taken to court for denying the right to go to court over it. True, many people will go to traffic court to get out of a ticket because they know the officer who GAVE them the ticket will likely not show up, even though they are blatantly at fault. THAT is another problem all together, and one that can be dealt with in other ways. Many of the tickets given out in Vancouver are unjustified, and have no legal basis. It is a shake-down scheme, but instead of mafioso types smoking cigars and wearing Italian suits and fedoras, it is the city, and the province, sending out their officers to do things they are not comfortable with. It is not exclusive to Vancouver, either. I recently heard about a bylaw officer making a young boy burst out into tears, and getting into a "physical altercation" with the boy's father, over the fact that a child did not get a proper business permit from the Port Coquitlam city council prior to setting up his lemonade stand. The idea behind Provincial and Municipal government is to spread the administrative burden around, and also ensure that smaller communities do not fall through the cracks, not give local crooks the opportunity to gain dubious credibility for their protection rackets and shake-down schemes. They cannot simply decide to make arbitrary changes to the law without advertising these changes, and fine people for not following said laws/bylaws to make a quick buck, because they cannot keep their books in order. If they are not competent, they should be replaced with people who are. I say start with Gregor Robertson; the man has proven he does not give a damn about following the rules unless they suit him. Just look at the road-closures and bike-lanes he had put in, before there was even a vote on it. The problem is, even though we know they are crooks, so are their opponents. Elections seem to come down to the "devil you know" more than actual platforms or support of the candidates these days.