The St. Albert Gazette article, “City partnership tackles graffiti,” May 22 Gazette, describes a new city bylaw that apparently imposes a fine of $1,000 (on first offence), to the owner of any property that was vandalized with graffiti, unless said victim
What is next? Will St. Albert council bring in a bylaw by which "a pedestrian run over in a crosswalk must pay a fine of $2,000 (on first offence), unless he removes his broken body from pavement in five minutes?"
Will they bring in a law by which the victim of a robbery is punished for a carrying a wallet?
I never thought our council would accidentally or even wilfully come up with such total injustice, to punish victims of crime, especially just before an election. Kindergarten attendees could come up with better ideas.
It further appears that the head of bylaw enforcement apparently agrees this bylaw is necessary to prevent the city from being overwhelmed by an excessive amount of graffiti.
Maybe it did not occur to any of them that if bylaw enforcement (instead of helping design city laws that punish victims) were to actually take time to investigate and lay charges against any perpetrators, we would get less graffiti.
Lastly, the time limit of 24 hours to remove graffiti is totally inadequate. If council does not believe it, they should make this experiment: spray one-foot tall black paint letters onto a brick wall of the city hall, or the bylaw office building, or you can try a white stucco wall at the city engineering department, then appoint any one of the councillors to try and remove it within the time limit. If spray-on is discovered only 10 hours after application, you got just 14 hours left! You are allowed to work on it during the night. You could never find a contractor to do it in that time.
A.K. Zimmer, St. Albert
