Quesnel City Council has voted in favour of imposing a 50 dollar fine for people that put their garbage out the night before it is supposed to be picked up.
The new guidelines restrict setting the cans out to between 4 and 8 am with the idea of minimizing wildlife attractants, and not just bears.
Tanya Turner is the Director of Development Services…
“It is actually a wildlife thing and actually the notes that I got from bylaw enforcement, even though there may not be as many files, we do get other complaints. Actually birds are the most problematic issue.”
Not everyone liked the idea of fines.
Councillor Martin Runge voted against it…
“I actually believe that we should educate first. To me it feels fairly heavy handed, I don’t think we are actually slowing down wildlife by moving garbage 20 feet to the curb.”
Mayor Bob Simpson noted that all of their bylaws were focused on education first…
“As a matter of principle, it’s always education first.  The problem we have it we have some repeat offenders that have problematic situations and we have no consequence.  It just adds a consequence to bylaw to deal predominantly with repeat offenders or egregious situations where they have a fall back.”
Councillor Runge and Mitch Vik both wondered if this was already covered off by the unsightly property bylaw.
Director Turner noted that it was unrealistic that every time someone has their garbage can spilled over that they would go and give them an unsightly, or deal with them on a nuisance property aspect.
As with all bylaws, this one will be complaint driven.
Council voted unanimously in favour of discontinuing commercial garbage pick-up.