Tweed finally passes smoking bylaw

Posted Feb 2, 2012 By Scott Pettigrew

EMC News -Tweed - Tweed municipal council has finally found wording for their smoking bylaw they could all agree on although it was clear at the January 24 council meeting that Councillor Justin Bray was still not entirely happy with the bylaw going through. The bylaw is entitled "smoking prohibited within 25 metres of municipal playgrounds and playing field's bylaw."

One of the definitions of the bylaw is, "Municipal playgrounds means any park open to the public and owned by the municipality which contains playground equipment and shall include the following, Memorial Park, Stoco playground and Marlbank playground."

As far as playing fields the bylaw says it is any area, field or court owned by the municipality where sports events take place such as baseball, soccer, basketball, volleyball or related sporting activities and includes the following locations, the fairgrounds ball diamond, Marlbank ball diamond, Stoco ball diamond, Memorial park ball diamond and fairgrounds land including the swimming pool, basketball court, volley ball court and the bike park.

As far as enforcement of the bylaw it is intended to be "self-regulating" and on the "honour system" for compliance. When asked if there would be any fines council said that for the first year there would not be and when asked what the fines would be after one year, council said they had not discussed the fines yet and they would figure out the cost of breaking the bylaw closer to the end of the one-year period.

In the smoking bylaw resolution from the persons and property committee it is important to note they added to the background information that they were recommending passing the bylaw "... based on the Health Unit's assurances that enforcement officers will be lenient during special events and non-children events held on municipal properties identified in the bylaw."

In other news from council the animal control contract has been awarded to Fearnley Davies "... based on his tendered amounts and subject to the signing of an agreement for services." A comparison report confi rmed Fearnley's bid was lowest overall.

The Livestock Valuer contract has been awarded to Heide Elliot and again it was confirmed she had the lowest bid and it was also noted that two of the tenders were not in compliance with specifi c tender format and requirements and should be disqualified.

Residents of River Street recently submitted a petition to council about parking on grass boulevards in which they did not want the bylaw restricting parking to pass. It was agreed by the Infrastructure Committee that paving the boulevards would be too costly. Council also agreed that none of the damage happens in the spring when the ground is soft so they have decided to amend the bylaw to stipulate that the bylaw will be enforced only for the months of March, April and May and signs will be posted specifying these months. They also said that in a letter that will be sent to residents of River Street, they will be "... encouraged to maintain the boulevards."

A recommendation was also passed from the recreation committee to continue to operate the canteen with a summer student with an expanded menu and additional duties including ball diamond lining and cleaning of washrooms.