Reverend Lloyd Bruce, minister at Sackville United Church. Photo: Sackville United Church
Sackville United Church Minister Lloyd Bruce is questioning why Tantramar needs to prohibit loitering and begging in public places.
“Has there been any reason to date to suggest why we need such a bylaw?” Bruce asked during a telephone interview today with Warktimes.
He added that the one presented to town council on Monday is vague and poorly written.
“What constitutes loitering? We don’t have a definition and my observation is that this bylaw goes against the very nature of trying to create and nurture and sustain a compassionate community.”
He was referring to proposed Tantramar Bylaw No. 2024-15 that would impose fines of $140 to $640 on anyone deemed to be loitering, which the bylaw defines as “to remain in or hang around an area for no obvious purpose.”
The bylaw, brought forward by Town Clerk Donna Beal, would impose the same range of fines on anyone who begs for money, food or charitable help in any public place or who goes door-to-door seeking such support.
Beal said the new bylaw would replace ones already in effect in Sackville and Dorchester that were required under the old provincial municipalities act.
The current Sackville bylaw enacted in 2007 specifically exempts sidewalk musicians, but the new one makes no mention of them.
Beal added that the new local governance act leaves it up to municipalities whether they wish to enact such a bylaw which anti-poverty campaigners have long criticized as measures that criminalize poverty and homelessness.
During Monday’s council meeting, Treasurer Michael Beal said Sackville has used the anti-loitering provisions to prevent vandals from hanging around in parks until crowds thin out and they can cause damage.
“How do you guess what the intention is of a group of people sitting in the park?” Lloyd Bruce asks.
“This bylaw is poorly worded and again, it goes against the nature of allowing for compassionate response or even the expression of difficult circumstances,” he adds.
Book sales?
Councillor Allison Butcher seemed puzzled by one section of the new draft bylaw that would appear to allow anyone to sell any book approved by the provincial cabinet without a licence:
The town clerk explained that the bookselling section was included in the old municipalities act and so far, has not responded to an e-mail request from Warktimes for further clarification.
It appears that the bookselling licence exemption may have related to door-to-door sales of Bibles, encyclopedias, dictionaries and other reference books.
To read the list of provincially approved books in a regulation repealed in 2014, click here.
Meantime, council has referred the new loitering and begging bylaw for first and second readings (approval in principle) to its next regular meeting on June 11.
Would Sackville’s chief loiterer George Stanley be exempt from the new bylaw? Cartoon by CHAT GPT
Get George Stanley off the street. And I can refuse my neighbour that cup of sugar she needs for baking. And certainly I will be able to call the law on the poor fellow that comes to our door and asks if there is any work he can do in the yard or around the house. What a travesty, Tantramar Town Council. Your world is 19th century Dickens’ London.
Thanks to Rev. Bruce for pointing out some of the problems and questions that arise from this proposed by-law. It is absolutely vague, confusing, and poorly-written which leaves it open to misuse and abuse. This is essentially a poor-bashing and anti-homeless law that poses very real threats to unhoused people in our community. Absolutely archaic to propose by-laws which have the purpose to punish visibly poor people who have no choice but to spend time in public spaces. Please be reminded that Indigenous people are over-represented in the unhoused population. All panhandling (or ‘begging’) by-laws are discriminatory – they directly target an activity associated with homelessness and poverty, and pedestrians often give money to people perceived as being visibly in need in public space, even if that person is not actively soliciting donations. The criminalisation of begging indirectly penalises homelessness and poverty and hence it punishes people who have few or no other options to earn money. Instead of adopting a panhandling and loitering ban commonly used to make the homeless less visible, let’s protect the most vulnerable in our community and tackle underlying social issues with comprehensive solutions.
This is another example of the many failures of policy governance. Pretty neat way for the province to not have to defend a council mistake or incompetence. You just can’t pop this out of a drawer.
This raises the possibility if future problems lead to a council conflict with management. CEO your only employee and council.
Excerising Prudence case law and regulations particularly in post Dodd-Frank environment. “Loitering” must be an action or inaction without purpose.
Simply standing around is not sufficient. There are so many cases of precedent law here. Council might want to pause this one. You can make the town very poor and some one very rich.
Plus there is the definition of a public place. Citizens are in no mood for another low priority regulation and this is definitely not a bylaw to be rubber stamped. Retired amateur parliamentarian. Imagine a human rights charge.
The answer is to loiter with either a shovel [for all the bs. around here] or a broom [for the cigarette butts need cleaning up and they don’t remove themselves].
Hilarious hot takes from Wark.. I enjoyed watching you stare them all down on Youtube for the wingnuts that they are. Bravo! ” Wark for Mayor ”
[ engagin with Chap GPT, another thing not on my bucket list ].
Everyone has already said it, Lloyd Bruce best of all.
I felt a mixture of sadness and anger when I read this by-law and the intention of the Tantramar Town Council to enact it. Even in Canadian cities, people can stand or sit in public places without a specific reason. Here in a pretty rural town, one would expect more folks than in cities to sit or stand, alone or in groups, without having to define why they are doing so to an “officer”.
Solitary dreaming poets loiter a lot, and so do young people. And so do I.
It doesn’t seem that this bylaw is designed to “remove” me, or a dreaming poet from the streets, but rather is a not-upfront way to entitle some “official” to “control” in advance by telling a group sitting around a picnic table in the evening in Billy Johnstone Park to scram, or to remove someone who appears to an official to be “undesireable”.
A friend says this happened to her daughter a couple of years ago — a grown woman, a homeowner and a taxpayer, who had a solid career. She and one or two other women went down to sit on the dock at Silver Lake in the evening to be together in nature and enjoy it in a safe and beautiful place. A by-law officer removed them for loitering.
This loosely worded by-law is wide open to misuse. I have lived in a city — New Haven —where certain people were routinely picked up for loitering when, in fact, they were walking home from classes or from teaching, at night, at Yale University. It is not a stretch to imagine a similar misuse of this by-law here in Sackville, Dorchester or other areas of our new Town of Tantramar.
What is REALLY problematic is homelessness, food insecurity, and drug – overdose problems, all of which are growing issues here. I do not want these issues in our community covered and pushed underground. They need to be addressed.
The by-law is so poorly worded that it should be scrapped. If there are problems, let Town Council engage the right persons to address the roots of these problems, and work to provide a compassionate, helping environment, rather than imposing preventative restrictions on dreamers and late-night star gazers, the homeless and the hungry.
which the bylaw defines as “to remain in or hang around an area for no obvious purpose.
Will the bylaw officer being showing up at Council meetings ???