Duane Hicks
The town’s bylaw enforcement department cracked down on parking violators this summer.
Its quarterly activity report showed a spike in parking tickets issued in July and August.
Over those two months, bylaw officers wrote 64 tickets—39 during a nine-day span in July, including 12 on the first day (July 14).
Twenty-five more parking tickets were issued in August, including 12 on one day alone (Aug. 16).
Bylaw enforcement officer Patrick Briere noted the town had advertised for a summer student to help with parking enforcement, but no one applied.
Council then directed Briere and fellow bylaw enforcement officer Arlene Byrnes to revamp their schedules to spend more time downtown and gauge how big of a problem parking is there.
Briere added they did see a trend over the two months—more often than not, when they issued tickets, fewer were issued the next day.
This could indicate repeat offenders were getting the message.
“We did do a lot more proactive enforcement for this summer,” Briere said.
“We are looking at potentially doing the same thing next year.
“We are trying to help the downtown core and move cars along as best as we can,” he added.
“We have a hundred other things on the go all the time, but we’re looking at trying to revamp our schedules again for next year to really hammer down enforcement [downtown].
“We have slowed down a little bit,” Briere admitted. “We’re not as heavy as we were in July and August.
“But we are still down there; we are still enforcing parking,” he stressed.
Briere added he and Byrnes recently have been focusing on school zones, as well.
