As laws around drinking in parks relax in cities across Canada, public health concerns are still being raised (Natalie Stechyson / CBC News)
“In my view, a lot of the general associations we have with drinking in public are negative, like drunkenness in public, drinking and driving, like drunken hoodlums, all of these things — which make the news, but aren’t necessarily the only way people consume alcohol in public.”
Dr. Malleck quoted here gets close to the source of the problem, which is classism.
Most mayors, city councilors, etc. are doing well financially and they own their own houses (as well as cottages, investment properties, etc.), so the idea of going to a public park to drink outside with friends seems unusual to them. They view public parks as community spaces, but only within their personal perspectives as homeowners, and therefore what is allowed in parks is restricted to class-based moral sensibilities. It’s easy for Councilor So-and-So to bring her laptop to her backyard garden patio for another Zoom meeting. The line worker who just wants to sit outside with her family after 12 hours inside sorting chicken meat for Councilor So-and-So’s BBQ that weekend… she was an afterthought when it comes to these kinds of public space bylaws.
This disconnect between how municipal leaders and many apartment/condo-dwelling constituents live also explains the conflicts during the pandemic when people wanted to leave the isolation of their apartments for fresh air, but homeowner leaders (with their backyards, cottage retreats, ‘working’ holidays, etc.) told them to go back inside and threatened them with fines.
We do we have these bylaws? Ignorance rooted in class.
Bingo! It’s all classicism. It’s easy for them to look down on people who go to parks to drink and hangout. These people often have their own private grass and outdoor space they can enjoy. I live in an apartment and have beers on a blanket in public parks because the only outdoor space I really have.
Classism isn’t just hate, it’s ignorance too. What are “normal” ways to use a park are completely different if you only ever see them briefly when you walk through them on your morning dog walk, or maybe to let your kids play on the playground after school. It will take a lot of deprogramming to change the perspective to parks being a place to be, and live life.
This disconnect between how municipal leaders and many apartment/condo-dwelling constituents
We practice democracy. The municipal leaders are the constituents. Mayors and councillors are employees hired by the leaders to carry out their bidding. That said, there is probably something to be said about the, more likely to be poorer, people in apartment/condos spending less time – even no time – directing their employees. As the employees are certainly not mind readers, they are going to lean towards the bosses that talk to them and will quickly forget about the silent.
We do we have these bylaws? Ignorance rooted in class.
That is no doubt a large part of it. But there is also a lot of plain old conservatism, particularly in Toronto. Alcohol in convenience stores? “Won’t someone please think of the children?” Toronto cries – not noticing that rural Ontario has allowed the sale of alcohol in convenience stores since 1962 without problem. Hell, it took until the year 2000 for Toronto to finally give up on being dry, decades after the rest of the province abandoned the idea. Like the naysayers to marijuana legalization, which turned out to be a nothingburger in the end, there is a lot of fear of the unknown. Should the bylaws be lifted, they would no doubt quickly forget about their concerns, but that doesn’t stop the irrational resistance beforehand.
I don’t understand why it is a concern, many countries allow drinking in public, and yet I’ve never seen as many intoxicated people in public as when I moved to Canada. All councilors need doing is taking a look at the data in these countries, or even Montreal in here!
The vast majority of people who’d take advantage of this are responsible ones who just wanna share a beer and some chips with friends.
The ones who’d get wasted are already doing it, they don’t care about the law.
We recently went for a picnic in a park (obviously with alcohol), and we ended up sharing extra cake with strangers at the skate park, and my nurse friend helped an injured kid.
Not sure whether it was legal to drink at the park, but we definitely made a positive social impact just by being there instead of a private backyard.
I would say people are more likely to drive to a restaurant or bar than a park so drinking alcohol in parks may lower drinking and driving. Public intoxication is still illegal.
Honestly, and this is purely anecdotal, but I think a “public intoxication” law is way too broad and abused by law enforcement to unjustly wrangle up people they feel are “undesirable”.
Walk down any street in Toronto that has nightlife and there are many very obviously drunk people that do not get penalized. Whereas vulnerable, often homeless, people get swept up for similar behaviour.
I feel like “public intoxication” laws should be removed, and laws surrounding actual conduct (verbal/physical assault etc.) should remain. Having such a subjective law leaves way too much room for prejudice.
Honestly tragic I can’t drink a beer while I have a picnic :(
It’s funny in B.C. that there are more beaches where you can smoke crack then drink beer.
I mean in Toronto the joke is that every year it’s not legal is just another year of illegally drinking in parks. It’s happening anyway in basically every park, so just make it legal already.
