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Curfew debate over Councillors against idea of restricting the hours teenagers can be outdoors in public places
Shawn Giilck
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, July 11, 2013
INUVIK
Some town councillors and a former mayor want no part of a renewed discussion on Inuvik's repealed curfew bylaw, which removed restrictions on people under the age of 16 from being outdoors in public places.
"Having just rescinded the curfew bylaw due to the fact that is not enforceable, I do not feel there is a need to reinstate it," deputy mayor Jim McDonald stated in an e-mail. "This issue first came to council when I was elected for my first term in 2007 and council has given this issue considerable thought and time in making their decision."
Town councillors were asked for their reaction to an Inuvik Drum online poll which showed 79 per cent of respondents would like to see the curfew issue revisited.
"Also, I would be interested in knowing how many people participated in the webpoll and were they all citizens of our community," McDonald added.
The previous bylaw curfew, introduced in 2007, said no one under the age of 16 should be on the streets after 10 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on the weekends. The bylaw carried a fine of $50 for a first offence, $75 for a second offence and $100 for a third offence.
Councillor Clarence Wood scoffed at the relevance of the newspaper's poll because it didn't quantify how many people answered the question.
"Unfortunately until I know how many people responded, I cannot comment," Wood said in an e-mail. "I have no idea as to the validity of the poll. Perhaps only 10 people responded. I have brought this up before with the Drum. Until they post the number of responses, the poll is useless and means nothing."
Former mayor Derek Lindsay said he is fairly neutral on the issue, but doubted bringing the issue back for a second run would be any more effective than the first try.
Lindsay said he appreciated why some people might try to make a link between removing youth from the streets at night, particularly during long hours of daylight in the summer, and the increasing problems with people causing problems downtown. But he questioned making the link.
Instead, Lindsay said better parenting would be much more effective than any measure the town could take.
"It really bothers me to see the young people hanging around the Trapper at closing time and seeing that," Lindsay said. "They don't need to see that."
He also said that some younger residents might be attracted to the downtown area to hang out with the older people who the town is cracking down on, but wasn't sure how much of an effect that would have.
Lindsay said he suspects some of the people agitating for another look at the curfew bylaw are the same ones whose children are out at all hours of the day and night causing problems for residents.
"Some of these people just boot their children out the door," he said.
In the past, the town sounded a siren to let the youth know when they were supposed to head home, Lindsay said. That system has been dismantled now, although the town has given some consideration to purchasing a replacement.
The bylaw was repealed last winter with little public reaction. At the time, council called it "unenforceable."
Information from Lindsay and senior administrative officer Grant Hood suggest that it may have not been a matter of it being unenforceable, but rather that the town hadn't bothered to enforce the bylaw for some years.
Lindsay and Hood also said it would be difficult to begin enforcing a bylaw after it's been neglected.
It's also unclear as to who would enforce the curfew if it was reinstated. Since it's a town bylaw, that would likely mean municipal bylaw officers would be the primary agents, with some backup from the RCMP.
Lindsay said he doubted there would be much of an appetite for that, even though the town is now considering expanding the scope of the bylaw officer's powers to help roust alleged trouble-makers from the core and the park areas around town.
Newton Grey, president of the Inuvik Chamber of Commerce, had a completely different perspective on the matter. He's an enthusiastic proponent of bringing back the curfew.
He said he has discussed the issue with the RCMP several times in the last year or so. Grey said the statistics he's seen from those discussions indicate Inuvik's crime rate, especially for small crime, peaks during the summer.
Those hours also correspond to the least-patrolled times by municipal bylaw officers, he said.
Many of the perpetrators who wind up being charged for those crimes, he added, are minors.
"At some point, I think we have to say this is enough, and we need to designate a time when they should be off the streets," Grey said.
He said he knows there are sensitive cultural issues to be addressed in any such discussion. Traditionally, people living in the Arctic regions have followed a more natural body-clock cycle that sees them intensely active in the summer and extremely less active in the winter, Grey said, which is fine up to the point where it becomes a criminal and property-damage matter.
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