At their meeting on July 9, Tantramar council will be asked to once again consider a new loitering bylaw for the municipality, but with key changes after a previous version was voted down on June 11.
Town clerk Donna Beal told council changes were made to “ensure they are capturing what the discussion by council indicated that they would like to see in this bylaw.”
This time, the bylaw has been renamed “A By-Law Relating to Loitering and Soliciting in Tantramar,” with the word “begging” replaced by “soliciting.”
And instead of banning soliciting, the new bylaw proposes to ban repeated soliciting after a negative response, and also bans soliciting in a way that might obstruct or impede traffic. Curiously, it also proposes that street musicians be exempt from both those provisions.
The new bylaw, if approved, also includes the repeal of existing Sackville and Dorchester bylaws, one of which is available online, and the other which is inaccessible due to contamination.
The previously rejected bylaw outright banned asking for money in public places, and left in outdated references to door-to-door book sellers.
Back on June 11, Councillor Josh Goguen expressed concerns about both the loitering and begging components of the original bylaw. He told council Monday that he was happy with the changes, and it appeared to him that staff had taken other bylaws like those of Moncton and Amherst into consideration.
“I think the wording is a lot better than what it was initially. So I definitely have no issues with approving this,” said Goguen.
There were no significant changes to loitering sections of the bylaw. Beal told council that Tantramar’s bylaws are complaint driven, apparently to address concerns raised by Goguen about the potential for unfair enforcement of loitering rules. “A bylaw officer for Tantramar is not going to just go to the park and ask somebody sitting on the bench how long they’ve been there and what they’re doing,” said Beal. “Generally, that conversation would come through, you know, somebody that was at the park that maybe saw something like that, and after a time, called the municipal office to have somebody attend to it.”
The bylaw is expected back on the agenda for Tantramar council at their July 9 meeting. It must go through three readings at at least two separate meetings before coming into effect.
