Anti-idling bylaw runs out of fuel

Jun 11, 2019 | 6:00 AM

A universal anti-idling bylaw has been squashed by Vernon council, at least for now.

City council voted to receive the request for an anti-idling bylaw, but not act as recommended by city staff.

Coun. Brian Quring said he would like to wait for the climate action task force to present its recommendations before creating bylaws.

“What I don’t want to have is staff right now having to deal with this when we are going to deal with this again on a much more global level, so I think we just need a little patience here, but I think it is a good idea,” he said.

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Coun. Scott Anderson agreed with Quiring’s position, but for a very different reason.

“I think that, number one, with the more nuisance bylaws that we have that are unenforceable, more people are not inclined to follow any of our bylaws,” he said, adding some people may need to idle their vehicles for a good reason.

“Pets in RV’s for instance, or pets in cars with the air conditioning on; yes you can leave them at home but you can’t if you are in an RV,” he said.

At the last council meeting, three young students stood before council to ask the city to consider more anti-idling education and enforcement.

In response to the student’s delegation, city staff recommended working with the Regional District of North Okanagan to create an anti- idling bylaw that would be available for all jurisdictions to adopt.

In 2004 , the City of Vernon adopted a policy that limits idling to three minutes per hour.

An official anti-idling bylaw was then brought forward in 2013, which extended the idling limit to five minutes but the bylaw was later rescinded by council.

by Tiffany Goodwein

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