Pellerin: Free spirits? Metropolis of Ottawa should let us quaff a cold one in our parks

You can always count on Metropolis of Ottawa staff to ruin the beginning of what should be spring with their legendary possibility-averse, buzz-destroy energy. Now they’ve determined that the just folks of Ottawa can’t presumably be trusted with alcoholic beverages in public parks.

After the a hit experiment whereby Toronto allowed folks 19 and over to regain pleasure from a tipple in 27 public parks last summer without anyone freaking out beyond what you’d question in Hogtown, intrepid Capital Coun. Shawn Menard asked metropolis hall whether, maybe, you know, we couldn’t are trying it here, too.

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Dan Chenier, general manager of the metropolis’s parks department answered, presumably without suffocating from self-restraint, that sooner than Ottawa may take indicate of a similar pilot challenge, it “requires a thorough evaluation of safety considerations.” There’s a need for consultation and the crafting of ideas, plus of course the accomplish of indicators to think about.

In other words, no.

I’m about ready to hyperventilate in the brown paper bag I may instead use to carry my can of local craft IPA en route to a bucolic picnic. Is there a constitutional requirement I in some way overlooked that says we must at all occasions be ridiculous, anti-fun and regressive?

For residents who don’t have spacious backyards or balconies, going out for a drink means going to a pub or other licensed establishment. In the heart of an affordability disaster it has a distinctly Marie-Antoinette ring to it. Qu’ils boivent une pinte à 12 $!

It’s almost as infuriating as that time the metropolis issued regulations governing the tip and placement of cramped free libraries. Be aware that?

If we had a historical past of behaving savor drunken hooligans in public parks, that would be one thing. Especially if we did so whilst loudly reciting Voltaire from a e-book we’d picked up in a neighbour’s unregulated box. However really, Ottawans are such a comfortable bunch. In fact, when asked by the media how noteworthy of a swear unregulated drinking in parks is, the metropolis had to confess that the bylaw department had handed out a grand total of nine tickets in the last two years.

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Now not to advertise civil disobedience, nonetheless since I took up ultimate, I’ve also enjoyed the occasional beer after a game. It’s presumably the meekest obtain of tailgating there’s; a handful of sweaty adults standing around the parking lot quietly talking about teenagers, work and frisbee politics. Why on Earth would you charge that?

Too many folks appear to equate drinking alcohol with being beneath the influence of alcohol. I don’t want to make gentle of alcohol dependency; I do know alcoholism can be hard to deal with. Casual drinking is something else solely. What would be more natural than sipping a local craft cider reclining in your zero-gravity beach chair at Mooney’s Bay at sunset?

Definite, settle parks that aren’t suitable subsequent door to a faculty in case you want to avoid teenagers finding out what “daddy juice” really means because there’s no way they’d ever find out at home. Oh, and by the way, making alcohol taboo makes teenagers more curious about it, no longer much less. In case you want your teenagers to grow into these that have a healthy relationship with alcohol, let them glance to blame drinking.

The Metropolis of Toronto just lately released a anecdote on last year’s pilot program that said most folks were happy with it, that there had been few disorders and that the program was carried out with minimal operational impacts. It’s considering making the pilot permanent. Oh, and you know what else? I checked and that metropolis doesn’t even regulate cramped free libraries. And no one has sprained a clavicle because of that.

I never understanding I’d glance the day when I would ask why Ottawa can’t be as cool as Toronto. But here we are. Why no longer let us regain pleasure from a casual brewski, ideally with a free e-book, in this pleasing nature we have? We’re astronomical adequate to handle that.

Brigitte Pellerin (they/them) is an Ottawa author.

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