(LOUD) PIPE DREAMS: Why Kelowna can't crack down on annoying vehicles
As summer arrives in the Okanagan, so does the scourge of noisy mufflers that police and bylaw officers can do very little to control.
That could change if the provincial government just got in line with other provinces and changed the powers given to bylaw officers, Kelowna city council was told Monday, June 19.
“In Kelowna, under the good neighbour bylaw, we do have a section that speaks to such noise,” Darren Caul, the city’s community safety director, told council. “One of the challenges in the Province of British Columbia is that bylaw officers do not have the authority, as they do in the other provinces, to be dealing with moving violations. That is an impediment as compared to other provinces around the enforcement of this. We go back to a reliance on our finite police resources to deal with this.”
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Given the difficulty in enforcing noise violations, the police do not even issue tickets.
“Our method and mode of being able to address noise violations often comes to referrals to an inspection facility,” RCMP Supt. Kara Triance told council. “That referral to an inspection facility costs the individual driver money to have their vehicle inspected, money to have it modified and then they have to come back and produce a copy of that order that shows it has been changed and modified.”
She did not say how often drivers of noisy vehicles are required to do that. Given the magnitude of the noise and the fact that it’s no longer just certain types of motorbikes, it seems the offenders are not at all worried.
“It’s not just Harley Davidsons,” Coun. Luke Stack said. “Crotch rockets have been really successful in increasing their sound and I would also say large trucks have really started zinging up their muffler systems. And small cars. I’ve noticed they’ve really started modifying their muffler systems to make as much noise as possible.”
Coun. Maxine DeHart pointed out that Stack tried, as far back as 2011, to bring in bylaws to control noise but that was deferred to the province to bring in legislation, which it never did.
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