Bylaw change takes aim at loitering teens

BY MARC LALONDE

marc.lalonde@transcontinental.ca

Dollard des Ormeaux “just has too many teenagers” loitering and hanging around parks, shopping centres and other establishments, Dollard mayor Ed Janiszewski said in light of a change in a peace and quiet bylaw its council passed last week.

The change to the city’s peace-and-quiet bylaw saw the word ‘loitering’ added to the law’s wording regarding prohibited activities in Dollard des Ormeaux, as well as banning the smoking of any substances other than tobacco in public.

The change will allow public-security agents to cite offenders and hold them until police arrive, Janiszewski added. “There’s no question that kids get together and hang out together, they sometimes like to smoke, you know, whatever it is they have on hand,” the mayor said, adding that designation didn’t specifically apply to marijuana. “I don’t know what they’re smoking these days, actually,” he said.

Janiszewski acknowledged teenagers need time and places to hang out but stressed that they find a house to do it in, rather than a public park. “Kids aren’t all bad. They need to hang out, to be with their peer group, but it shouldn’t be in public. They should be at their home or at somebody else’s home.”

The change wasn’t based on a rash of loitering kids causing disturbances, but rather, “one or two isolated incidents,” of 15- and 16-year-olds hanging out on street corners and in parks because they have nowhere else to go, Janiszewski said.