CityOpinion

The Burlap Sack: Taber, Alberta

In current events this week, Taber, Alberta, has turned into the town from Footloose. I wish I was joking.

Instead of banning dancing, the town has stated it will start issuing fines for swearing, as well as banning gatherings of three or more people, if the police believe there’s a high likelihood of a disturbance. You may as well ban dancing to go along with it, if you’re going to start monitoring actions that arbitrary.

The swearing law kind of makes sense once you read the official language. Basically, if you’re standing on a street corner screaming obscenities at people, you’ll be fined. Sure, I’m all for public decency, but this makes it sounds like the town wasn’t doing anything about that before these laws came into effect. What about public indecency laws?

But really, the main thing that puts the burlap in my sack is the law about gatherings of people. I’m willing to give people the benefit of the doubt and say that not all groups of three or more are planning nefarious deeds, in fact, if I’m out late at night, I’m more inclined to feel safe in a large group of people. Maybe Taber needs Kevin Bacon to come along and start screaming “FUCK THE POLICE” in the middle of Main Street.

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