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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Alex Debogorski had his day in court last week to fight a parking ticket he received while dropping his wife off at the airport - and won.

It all started when the well-known Yellowknifer and star of the reality show Ice Road Truckers went to the Yellowknife Airport to drop off his wife in July. The sign near the doors where he parked said "drop-off only" and that any vehicles left unattended would be ticketed and towed, Debogorski told Yellowknifer on Monday.

After helping his wife inside with her bags, Debogorski said that he left the building quickly and had paused to write something down when he noticed a bylaw officer examining his truck. When he questioned the officer, he was told that he was getting a ticket for failing to obey a traffic direction.

The parking violation had a charge of $29, said Debogorski, but he wasn't about to let it go.

"I shouldn't have gotten any ticket," he said, adding that he had obeyed the sign as best he knew how.

Last Thursday, Debogorski represented himself in front of a justice of the peace, who ruled in his favour. While Yellowknifer was not at court, Debogorski said that the justice said he had been following the intention of the law, which was all the court could ask for.

When asked why he decided not to pay the ticket, he said that he was fed up of hearing about city bylaw officers charging citizens unjustly while there are real problems on the streets, especially in the downtown core.

"Instead of bylaw going out there (to the airport), they could spend their time better attending alleys, helping the downtown streets," said Debogorski.

Uniformed bylaw officers patrolling the downtown at night could go a long way towards making the streets safer, much more than streetscaping or developing new housing developments, he said.

"Then they'd be doing something that would align the city with their whole social engineering strategy," said Debogorski.

In all, Debogorski is happy with the outcome on this matter, and would encourage other Yellowknifers who are unhappy with parking violations - or any other municipal or law enforcement issues for that matter - to follow his example.

"The whole point of the exercise is, if people aren't happy with it, they can go to justice of the peace court to explain your issue," he said.

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