Well, one man’s bitter pill is another’s revenue stream….or something like that.
Take the city strike. No sooner was it underway than some young bucks were out to make a buck, hauling trash for $4 a bag. Even the Granite Club got in on the act, taking members’ trash for free until the city got wise and stepped in to slap them with cease and decist orders.
Some folks are making a killing though. Today I was the provincial offences court at Sheppard and Markham which is a a half hour haul there and a half hour back.
The purpose of my visit was to request a court date for trial because on June 26 this year I was slapped with a $385 ticket for noise under the city bylaw 591-2.
My asshole neighbour John Horton and I have had a long running battle over his assertion that his rights to peace and quiet mean I can’t sneeze on my deck without the police arriving.
Of course, what’s truly amazing is that the police arrive within minutes of the complaint which is all the more curious because most people in Scarborough complain they could be assaulted in their beds and the police would still take half an hour to get there. Amazing service I must say. Perhaps there’s an inside connection there to the police radio room? Who knows but they do seem to attend very quickly in my experience and that of my other neighbour who as also run into Horton’s ire.
Anyway, I’m gearing up to take this ticket to court and fight it with gusto. I’m actually looking forward to it because the officer who issued it got me out of bed to come to the door after they arrived at about 11:30 that night. I went to bed about 11:15 or so, which begs the question, how loud was the music and how long and what time was it playing since the house was dark when the cops arrived.
More on that on a later day.
So I arrive at Markham and Sheppard to find City strikers picketing the parking lot. The parking lot for god’s sake!
It was a ten minute wait and there was already a car in front of me. Meanwhile uniformed cops milled around writing tickets for cars that parked on the street.
The alternative was to go across the street and park at a privte lot, a banquet hall, where the beared guy with a money pouch was raking in the dough. There must have been 200 cars on the lot at $5 a pop and I figured he turned the spots over three times a day.
Doo the math folks. That’s up to $3,000 cash a day. How much is he kicking back to those city workers I wondered? He wouldn’t say.
Then there’s the police. It’s a cash bonanza for them since they’re writing tickets non stop. But, oh, not one cop lifts a finger to point out that the strikers aren’t picketing, that is walking across the entrance of the Green P lot, but actually clustered and stationary.
And they make no attempt to explain their cause to those waiting to get in. It’s a deliberate time waster.
“This is what we’ve negotiated with the city,” the picket captain says.
Really? The city is willing to bargain away citizen’s rights to enter public property for lawful means while illegal tactics get police protection?
Next, try and get in the court house. For a simple matter of filling out a form requesting trial there’s a 40 minute to one hour line up just to get in the building.
Inside, the waiting times drag on and on.
Why can’t the Province declare a moratorium on the 15 day wait for POA offenses until the strike is over? That would make more sense than have people waste their time and simply generate funds for the already swollen City of Toronto coffers.
Even more aggravating, when I took a picture of a cop writing a ticket his partner got all snotty. He even suggested I could be charged with assaulting police or causing a disturbance.
“Did you get his consent,” the cop demanded.
“Don’t need it,” sez I. “It’s a public event at a public place.”
“Where’s your media ID?”
“At home but will this do?
I shot him my middle finger with my Toronto Sun 20 year ring.
Whoops.
I’ve always gotten on with the police. I know they do a difficult job and sometimes they get crapped on for no good reason.
But lately, and it is just lately, in my dealings with the rank and file I have increasingly found them to have attitude, be overly aggressive, contemptuous and all too ready to make threats about charges that have no merit in fact at all.
And that’s a sad statement because my son, 19, says this is the way his dealings with police go and have gone since he was 16.
Citizens of Toronto have rights too and its about time our rights were up held a little more than those damn strikers who have deprived kids of daycare, sports teams of park and homes of garbage pick up, just to mention the most aggravating points.