Midland looks at new bylaw to cure public nuisance issues

The Town of Midland is targeting undesirable actions with a new public nuisance bylaw.

Midland administrative staff has created a new ‘Public Nuisance Bylaw’ for council’s consideration to close a gap in enforcement capabilities within the Town of Midland.

During the past month, staff have encountered some situations of undesirable actions by people causing unrest in residents.

At that time, however, no bylaw covered these types of actions.

Public Nuisance bylaws are created to protect the public from undesirable actions from others, such as aggressive behaviour including, yelling, screaming, swearing at others for no reason, panhandling/solicitation for money or other goods.

The bylaw would also cover un-housed people setting up tents or temporary shelters on town land that is not within a park setting.

Going forward, bylaw staff will have the necessary tools to enforce the law regarding any undesired act as listed within the bylaw.

The proposed bylaw would cover:

• Prohibiting people from setting up a tent or a temporary structure on any town-owned property regardless if in a park or in a parking lot.
• Prohibiting people from blocking pedestrian access ways and sidewalks. This would also cover a private company depositing fill or screenings over a sidewalk blocking access for pedestrians.
• Prohibiting any motorized vehicle from operating on a sidewalk with an exception to a mobility device such as a motorized wheelchair. This would not include the fully-enclosed mobility devices.
• Prohibiting loitering, panhandling or soliciting on any town property or private property.
• Prohibiting any person from damaging town infrastructure.

Bylaw staff could grant an exemption to any of the provisions so long as the exemption does not interfere with the general integrity of the bylaw.