Local vintage shop owner Derrick Dixon is on the hook for an almost $300 COVID-19 compliance fine after all.
The RCMP issued the ticket to Dixon last fall after visiting his Hounds of Vintage shop on York Street in Sackville on a COVID compliance call.
Officer Christoph Bertrand first issued a compliance order warning Dixon to keep a copy of his COVID operational plan behind his counter. Then after Dixon commented that the presence of the two armed officers in his store to check on COVID protocols was “a bit much”, Bertrand issued a ticket for the same issue, which came with a fine for $292.50.
Dixon felt the ticket was unfair, and decided to contest it in court. But then when he showed up to a Moncton courtroom in January, there appeared to be no record of the ticket. Dixon says court officers told him the ticket had not been laid after all, and that he didn’t need to be in court.
He came home from Moncton frustrated that he was not informed, and that he didn’t get an opportunity to talk about why he felt the ticket was an unfair overreach by the RCMP.
But it turns out the story doesn’t end there. A few days after CHMA aired a story about Dixon’s pointless trip to court, someone contacted him to say that they had been in court and heard his name called earlier, before he arrived. He also got a letter saying that the fine was due by April 20.
That was right about the time Zone 1 went into red phase restrictions in January, and Dixon put the letter aside to focus on other things.
Recently, after making some calls to find out if he had options to contest the fine, Dixon was told it was too late.
“So now I’m just stuck paying fine,” says Dixon, “because they somehow didn’t realize I was in court that day.”
Dixon says he had checked in at the door and gave his name to the police officer at the entrance to the actual courtroom in January.
Though the letter Dixon received didn’t include any timelines or contact information for issues or concerns, he says once he called he was told there actually was a period where he could have contested. But now, he’s been told, he’ll have no choice but to pay. He says he feels as though he’s on the hook for someone’s clerical error at the courthouse in January.
“There’s no real options for me at this moment, other than just suck it up,” says Dixon. “They won. They’re going to get $300 out of me because some cop thought I gave him attitude.”
Dixon says the officer who gave him both the ticket and the compliance order has not been back in the shop to check to see if he complied with the order.
Thanks to local fundraising and support, Dixon has about $250 to help cover the cost of the ticket. But, “it still hurts to have to put that much money into something that I feel like I don’t deserve,” says Dixon.
FUTURE OF HOUNDS STILL UP IN THE AIR
Dixon says that it’s been a hard winter for Hounds of Vintage, mostly due to orange and red phases of COVID restrictions.
“The past two, three months, I’ve been just like working as hard as I can to just keep the business going,” says Dixon. “I’m not eligible for any of this funding from the provincial government,” he says. He’s been getting by with a little bit of funding from the federal government, he says, but that’s not specifically for his business. “I’ve just been overwhelmed with survival at this point,” says Dixon.
Now that spring is in the air, he’s starting to see things pick up again, and is hoping for a summer similar to the one he had last year, during mostly yellow phase restrictions. He says the future viability of Hounds of Vintage as a physical store will depend on what happens with the third wave, and the reopening of the border with Nova Scotia.
“I’m finally starting to sort of see this spring pickup again,” says Dixon. But he’s concerned about the potential for a third wave. “Whether anyone has said it or not, New Brunswick is going into its third wave. So it’s hard to say what will happen with that. “But if it doesn’t calm down, and the bubble doesn’t open this summer, I’m probably toast, I think, as a physical shop.”
