Increased long weekend police enforcement nets results in tickets

By J.W. Schnarr
Vauxhall Advance
jwschnarr@tabertimes.com

A zero-tolerance policy put in force by the RCMP lead to around 50 tickets being issued within the Municipal District of Taber over the long weekend, say police.
During their regular meeting on May 19, Vauxhall council was updated on how police fared during the Victoria Day long weekend by Cst. Keith MacDonald of the Taber/Vauxhall RCMP.

MacDonald said the zero-tolerance policy combined with additional officers on patrol resulted in an upsurge in the number of infractions discovered by police.
“Over the weekend, I want to say about 50 tickets were written inside of three days,” MacDonald said.

“Cst. Wierenga organized having extra members come in, and had people come in on their days off for purely zero-tolerance enforcement the entire weekend.”
MacDonald said an issues such as the one at The Forks last year, where there was a collision resulting in a fatality, were avoided this year due to enforcement in the area.

A number of signs have been put up informing campers there are no off-road vehicles allowed, and RCMP were stopping off-road enthusiasts before they arrived at the area to remind them.

“This year, we put so many more signs up, and people were calling us,” said MacDonald. “They know it’s illegal to quad there. We didn’t have any issues with people quadding down there. We were stopping them before they went down there, and saying, ‘listen, it’s a $300 ticket if you quad.’”

MacDonald said as a result of their efforts and of the responsible use by campers, there were no major issues this year.

“It was really good,” he said. “All the campers said there no incidents really happened there all weekend.”

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