Trinity Bellwoods Needs Fewer Cops and More Toilets

A riveting photograph of Canadian democracy in action, by Michael Toledano.

Instead of an angry mob of neighbours complaining about an orgy of drunken disorderly conduct in Trinity Bellwoods Park, a public meeting to address concerns about drinking in the popular downtown greenspace attracted an unexpectedly large turnout of people overwhelmingly against a police crackdown on public drinking.

Councillor Mike Layton told the gathering they had originally anticipated about a dozen people, and credited (or blamed?) the media for the approximately 150 that did show up. While the newspaper and news reports definitely raised the profile of the event, they were responding to an existing grassroots conversation emerging on social media, like this petition to formally allow public drinking in Toronto parks (currently at 2597 signatures).

One thing the mainstream media were responsible for was misrepresenting the cutely-named Project Green Glasses as a recent initiative, when it actually started a year ago, in parks all over the downtown. It's probably just a coincidence that it ramped up around when NOW Magazine ran a cover story last summer celebrating the party scene in Bellwoods, which quoted police openly talking about selective enforcement of drinking laws. There was widespread laughter around the room when one speaker suggested that media should have been more subtle when promoting certain aspects the park.

Given how unprepared they were for the large numbers, Layton and city staff deserve some kudos to how they handled the meeting. Rather that just letting people raise their hands to talk, the room was randomly divided up into small workgroups to discuss the issues, and then one member of each group spoke to the rest of the room to summarize what was said. Not only did this help prevent the louder and more aggressive voices from dominating, it also forced participants with opposing viewpoints to sit at the same table and address each other's concerns face to face.

Project Green Glasses came about in response to community complaints about noise, disorderly conduct, littering, and violence. However, the community that came out to the meeting made it clear that they didn't see the 115 public drinking tickets given out in Bellwoods over the past two months as being a good solution to those issues. Instead, most of the dialog was more along the lines of what would be better described as a harm reduction approach.

One of the most popular suggestions (based on the number of times it was brought up and the applause it garnered) was to keep the public washrooms open later to deal with the public urination issue. It was also suggested that erecting signs pointing to them could help, and at least one table brought up the idea of extra porta-potties in the summer months to help cope with the growing numbers of park visitors.

Similarly, the overall consensus on how to best deal with rowdy behaviour and noise was to increase police presence, and to ask them to focus on those particular issues while being more tolerant of responsible consumption. The idea of formally requesting a change to the laws was floated as well, but many also seemed to feel that the solution was just to be more subtle about drinking, like hiding your beer in a large coffee cup.

In response to the litter issue, the overwhelming answer was to put in more garbage cans. As it currently stands, there is a significant number of freelance bottle and can collectors circulating the park every afternoon scooping up the empties for profit, and one table suggested that formalizing that system might be worth looking at.

Some groups wanted to bring up non-drinking concerns, such as the noise from the baseball diamonds (“put up a treeline along that street”) and upping enforcement of dog leash laws outside of the off-leash area. The idea of emergency buttons connecting to police was floated in regards to safety, as well as less practical ones like individual drinking licenses.

At the end of the meeting, Layton thanked everyone for their input, and said that the parks and police representatives would take these suggestions under consideration. However, it's clear that as long as drinking in public parks is illegal in Toronto, the cops will enforce the law, even if only occasionally and at their discretion. Unfortunately, this puts it up to the individual officer, and means enforcement isn't necessarily connected to any alcohol-related bad behaviour.

115 fines over two months isn't actually very much, considering the thousands who are there on a typical sunny weekend afternoon. But if those fines aren't connected to any other charges, what exactly did they do wrong to deserve them, considering that the vast majority are getting away with flaunting the law? History tells us it probably has something to do with their appearance. It's easy for clean cut middle class white people to say “just be more subtle”, because it's generally not them that are targeted the most.

Unfortunately, loosening Ontario's legendarily paternalistic and strict liquor laws isn't an easy battle, and one that petitions and even polls have historically had little effect on. We're still fighting for the right to buy wine and beer at the corner store—legal park drinking is probably still at least a decade away.

Nevertheless, there are clearly a lot of people who feel passionately that public drinking laws belong in the last century, and that we're ready to move beyond that approach. Follow Ben on Twitter: @benjaminboles

Previously:

Think of the Can Ladies: Don't Crack Down on Drinking in Trinity Bellwoods Park

Tim Hudak Wants Ontario's Corner Stores to Sell Booze