People relaxing at Riverdale Park in Toronto on May 23.Ammar Bowaihl/The Globe and Mail
It is a curiosity of the law that you can legally sit in a Toronto park, roll a joint and start puffing away – but if you crack open a beer you could be fined up to $300.
Decriminalization of cannabis has highlighted the absurdity of open-alcohol laws in Canadian cities. With rare exceptions, people still can’t drink outside unless in a licensed commercial establishment, corralled and physically separate from passers-by.
This needs to change. Existing open-alcohol laws are inconsistent with logic, fairness and reality. The perceived harms of loosening the rules are largely illegal already, the laws ignore the needs of apartment dwellers, and the behaviour is happening anyway.
Although a shift is under way, municipal leaders still appear unwilling to trust their own citizens.
In Vancouver, drinking is allowed in only parts of some parks and, on a trial basis, beaches. Residents of Edmonton and Calgary can drink at specific locations within some parks, often having to pre-book a picnic table to do so. A city hall committee in Toronto will debate Thursday whether to advance a limited plan to test drinking in a small number of parks – the experience of other cities apparently not being enough of a test – that appears doomed to underwhelm. Among big Canadian cities, only in Montreal is having a drink with your picnic in the park without restriction.
A shift is long overdue. Parks and other outdoor spaces are the backyards of the growing number of urban Canadians who have neither lawn nor balcony. If you can sit outside your home having a drink, your apartment-dwelling fellow citizens should be able to do the same. What exactly do critics fear? Laws already cover most of the concerns they raise. Being intoxicated in public? Illegal. Littering? Illegal. Raising a ruckus? Illegal. Driving under the influence? Illegal.
The argument that laws against open alcohol are rarely enforced is hardly compelling. Retaining such laws is bad policy, and leaving enforcement to officer discretion is an invitation to hassle one person while turning a blind eye to another.
It’s hard not to conclude that resistance is rooted in English Canada’s historic killjoy streak. In 1927, The Globe and Mail’s editorial page bemoaned the “disgraceful street scenes” as long lines formed outside the first government liquor store. Toronto didn’t even have a restaurant with a patio until the early 1960s. And Ontario’s first self-serve liquor retailer only opened in 1969 – before that patrons had to fill out a requisition and have their tipple fetched by a clerk.
There’s no question that alcohol can cause harms. Many people don’t drink at all, which is their choice. That said, alcohol remains a legal substance. It is enjoyed by millions of Canadians who believe the pleasure they get from it outweighs its risks. That is their calculation to make.
During one of Toronto city council’s earlier debates around drinking in parks, it was notable that the discussion was all about the harms. Mostly ignored was the idea that people should be allowed to do something simply because they might enjoy it; that having fun together in public is fundamental to city life.
And now Toronto city staff have concocted a restrictive pilot project that seems to presuppose excessive consumption.
First, they devised onerous criteria. Near a school? Forget it – one must think of the children. Parks where drinking is allowed will need toilets and fountains, neither of which are common in Toronto. And those parks can’t be near hazards such as the waterfront, among other rules.
City staff picked locations in each ward then ran them past the local councillors, more than half of whom opted out.
There are obvious equity issues. Why should a local councillor decide what legal substances can be consumed publicly in their ward? Only 20 of the city’s approximately 1,500 parks will allow drinking. Four of those are in Toronto-Danforth, a ward on the east side of downtown. All of Etobicoke – an inner suburb with a population of 365,000 – is excluded.
Also, by identifying a handful of parks as the ones where you can drink, staff could turn them into destinations and risk exactly the sort of disturbances they seek to avoid. If this is accompanied by a crackdown in the parks not on the list, the scheme can already be said to have failed.
This need not be so complicated. Let Canadians stroll to their nearest park with a couple of tall-boys or a bottle of wine. Treat them like adults. Trust them. Perhaps they will surprise you.