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Give us ticketing powers or lock us down, Port Moody mayor asks Dr. Bonnie Henry

Port Moody Mayor Rob Vagramov wants cities to be able to hand out tickets for lack of physical distancing
pier at Rocky Point Park
While directional barriers and signs have been erected on the pier at Port Moody's Rocky Point Park to ensure physical distancing, the city's mayor wants the province to allow municipal bylaw officers to enforce those requirements by issuing tickets and fines.

Port Moody’s mayor wants the province to put some weight behind its physical distancing edicts.

In a letter sent Monday to British Columbia’s public health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, Mayor Rob Vagramov said a provincial order issued March 26 under the Emergency Program Act by Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth doesn’t go far enough. 

The order empowers municipal bylaw officers to issue warnings to people not staying at least two metres apart from one another in public spaces to minimize the risk of transmitting COVID-19, and even report their behaviour to public health officials. 

In the letter, Vagramov said he wants city bylaw officers, along with police officers, to be able to issue tickets to physical distancing violators.

In an email, Vagramov told The Tri-City News while he thinks Port Moody residents are doing “pretty good with physical distancing” on the city’s trails and sidewalks, he would like to see a province-wide approach to ensure people stay safe wherever they go.

“Port Moody is not an island,” he said, adding the lack of attention to maintaining a proper separation between people is especially apparent in nice weather.

And with sunshine become more common now that it’s spring, Vagramov said in his letter to Dr. Henry that he’s worried.

“Rather than the usual excitement, my city’s lack of teeth to enforce social distancing brings me great concern,” he wrote, adding the province’s current “middle-ground approach” to enforcing social distancing could expose people to risk and prolong the current public health crisis.

“Please either grant us enforcement powers or lock down the province,” Vagramov wrote.

Meanwhile, in Port Coquitlam, chief administrative officer Kristen Dixon said that city “has already been taking a proactive approach to enforcing the orders from the province and the provincial health officer.”

And in Coquitlam, Mayor Richard Stewart said on Facebook COVID-19 “doesn’t recognize municipal boundaries,” and urged everyone to “work together instead of separately.”

In Vancouver, which operates under provincial rules separate from those that govern all other B.C. municipalities, individuals can be fined up to $1,000 for violating physical distancing guidelines.

Other provinces, including Nova Scotia, have given authorities the ability to fine social distancing violators and, on March 20, Ontario Provincial Police said its officers could begin fining individuals $750 for failing to comply with a provincial order banning social gatherings of more than five people.

— with files from Gary McKenna