Brampton bylaw staff beefed up to handle COVID rule breakers over the holidays
Published December 11, 2020 at 5:49 pm
Santa Claus may be coming to town, but if you have too many friends over for Christmas, you may also get a visit from a Brampton bylaw enforcement officer.
The City’s bylaw enforcement office has recently hired more staff to deal with infractions as some residents and businesses still ignore the legal COVID-19 lockdown measures.
The officers will be looking for those who are having large gatherings particularly at Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Although there is a protocol, ultimately, if there is non-compliance with the bylaw, matters could get legal.
“The last thing we want is additional COVID spikes,” Mayor Patrick Brown told inbrampton.com. “We’ve had that happen on Thanksgiving and Labour Day and we certainly don’t want that again.”
But having a bylaw officer show up at your door doesn’t necessarily mean a large fine – at least not at first.
Depending on the circumstances, educating the offenders is the first order of business. If that doesn’t work the bylaw officer can issue a fine. If the matter persists, the police are called in.
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“So if someone is having a hundred person kegger (a large party), the first thing they would be told is to shut down, they could be fined, and if they still refuse then the police would come,” said Brown.
The measures currently in place to control the spread of COVID-19 in Brampton can be viewed here.