Town council is looking at making some changes to the rules on the riverfront.
At council’s meeting on Apr. 21, councillors spoke about putting up “no dogs allowed” signs in sensitive areas and limiting smoking in the public areas.
Although most of council agreed there is an issue with people leaving cigarette butts on the ground, councillor Nichole Adams disagreed that there was a smoking issue.
“I’m a frequent user of the riverfront in the summer – my kids use the splash park – and we’ve never had a problem with smokers,” she said.
“They’ve always gone off. They never stick around where the kids can get the fumes. If it’s a butt problem, it’s a littering problem, not a smoking problem.”
Some discussion took place exactly what would be considered a “public area.” According to chief administrative officer Josh Pyrcz, that’s something that doesn’t need to be decided right now.
“That would be part of the consultation process,” he said.
“The process by which you would pursue this, you would define those areas that the public and council (feel) would be appropriate given the nature and spread of the community.”
The ideas came from the Riverfront Design Committee, which has councillor Timothy Verhaeghe as council’s representative.
“We have spent quite a bit of time discussing this and talking about different scenarios. The big thing was in the spray park and the playground on the riverfront, that would just be a no smoking area,” he said.
“The thing about the dogs is in the area again around the spray park or the playground, no dogs would be allowed in there, but in other areas, such as the field or the trails, whatever, you can have a dog on a leash. We’re not trying to be outright restrictive and I think it is a good policy.”
Talk also took place on restrictions on dogs in the area.
“I know a lot of people who use the riverfront, both the spray area and the skateboard park, etc, they do it as sort of a family event, for many of these families that includes their pet. I support keeping it on the leash, but I think allowing no dogs there is kind of an inconvenience and I don’t support that,” said councillor Tanu Tyszka-Evans.
Pyrcz quickly pointed out, though, that dogs would only be restricted in the playground, spray park and skateboard park – not around them.
Administration was directed to look into the proposed regulation changes.
