ST. PAUL - A group of bylaws have been updated to reflect the fact that the County of St. Paul now has a bylaw officer that can enforce tickets.
The bylaws that have been updated include the Off Highway Vehicle bylaw, Noise Control bylaw, and Dog Control bylaw. Tickets issued under the bylaws can be upheld, explained CAO Sheila Kitz.
The bylaw officer has a provincial ticket book and people who receive tickets are legally required to pay them.
Changed in the Off-Highway Vehicle bylaw includes wording such as: "Any person who contravenes any provision of this Bylaw, is guilty of an offence."
The Off-Highway Vehicle bylaw also reads: "a Bylaw Enforcement Officer is hereby authorized and empowered to immediately issue a Violation Ticket pursuant to Part 2 or Part 3 of the Provincial Offences Procedure Act."
"The schedule of penalties to be charged by the County pursuant to this Bylaw shall be set out in the County’s Penalties Bylaw, as amended from time to time."
The Noise Bylaw was "cleaned up" and also allows for tickets to be written, according to Kitz.
For the Dog Control bylaw, a new definition for "at large" was also included in the changes. The definition now states that at large "means a dog that is not under control of a person by means of a leash or harness and is actually upon property other than the property in which the Owner of the dog has the right of occupation, or upon any highway, thoroughfare, street, road, trail, avenue, parkway, lane, alley, square, bridge, causeway, trestle, sidewalk (including the boulevard portion of the sidewalk), park, or other public space."
The "service dog" definition was also a change in the bylaw, which now reads: "Service dog means any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability."
Penalties
The municipality's Penalties Bylaw lists the fines that are in place.
For the Noise Bylaw a fine of $100 can be imposed on the first offence, $200 on the second offence and $500 to $2,500 on the third offence.
For the Off-Highway Vehicle Bylaw, a first offence has a fine of $50 and a subsequent offences are $100.
The Dog Control penalty schedule lists a number of different offences, with fines ranging from $100 to $750, depending on the offence and the number of times a person has offended the bylaw.
Council approved all three readings for each of the bylaws at the Oct. 13 meeting, unanimously.
