Pellerin: Free spirits? Ottawa should let us have a cold drink in the parks

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You can always count on Ottawa city staff to ruin the start of what should be spring with their legendary risk-averse, rumor-killing energy. Now they have decided that the good people of Ottawa cannot be trusted with alcoholic beverages in public parks.

After the successful experiment in which Toronto allowed people over the age of 19 to enjoy a drink in 27 public parks last summer without anyone being scared beyond what one might expect in Hogtown, intrepid Count Capital. Shawn Menard asked. city ​​hall if, maybe, you know, we couldn’t try it here too.

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Dan Chenier, general manager of the city’s parks department, responded, presumably without choking on self-control, that before Ottawa could consider a similar pilot project, it “requires a thorough assessment of safety considerations.” You need to consult and make rules, plus, of course, designing signs to think about.

In other words, no.

I’m about to hyperventilate into the brown paper bag I could use to carry my can of local craft IPA on the way to a bucolic picnic. Is there some constitutional requirement that I somehow missed that says we must be ridiculous, unfunny, and regressive at all times?

For residents who don’t have spacious patios or balconies, going out for a drink means going to a pub or other licensed establishment. In the midst of an affordability crisis, it sounds distinctly Marie Antoinette. What’s a pint worth for $12!

It’s almost as infuriating as the time the city issued regulations governing the height and location of Little Free Libraries. Remember that?

If we had a history of behaving like drunk hooligans in public parks, that would be one thing. Especially if we did it while reciting Voltaire out loud from a book we had taken from a neighbor’s unregulated box. But in reality, Ottawans are a very peaceful bunch. In fact, when asked by the media how problematic unregulated alcohol consumption in parks is, the city had to confess that the bylaws department had handed out a total of nine entries in the last two years.

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Not to promote civil disobedience, but since I started playing Ultimate, I also occasionally enjoy a beer after a game. It is possibly the most docile way of following the wheel that exists; a handful of sweaty adults standing around the parking lot talking quietly about kids, work, and frisbee politics. Why the hell would you fine that?

Many people seem to equate alcohol consumption with drunkenness. I don’t want to downplay alcohol dependence; I know it can be difficult to deal with alcoholism. Occasional alcohol consumption is something completely different. What would be more natural than sipping a local craft cider while lounging in your zero-gravity beach chair at Mooney’s Bay at sunset?

Sure, choose parks that aren’t right next to a school if you want to keep kids from discovering what “daddy juice” really means because there’s no way they’ll find out at home. Oh, and by the way, making alcohol taboo makes kids more curious about it, not less. If you want your children to become people who have a healthy relationship with alcohol, let them see responsible consumption.

The City of Toronto recently released a report on last year’s pilot program that said most people were happy with it, that there had been few problems and that the program was implemented with minimal operational impacts. He is considering making the pilot permanent. Oh, and you know what else? I checked and that city doesn’t even regulate little free libraries. And no one has sprained their collarbone because of it.

I never thought the day would come when I would ask why Ottawa can’t be as great as Toronto. Yet here we are. Why not let us enjoy a casual beer, ideally with a free book, in this beautiful nature of ours? We’re big enough to handle that.

Brigitte Pellerin (they/them) is a writer from Ottawa.

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