Kids’ water balloon fight lands Quebec mother with $102 fine from bylaw patrol

National Post ^ | June 21, 2018 | Sarah Krichel

[rickmichaels]

Genevieve Lamy says she doesn’t think her children will play with the hose again this summer. Not after she got a $102 ticket from the town of Granby, Que., because her daughters wanted to have a water balloon fight.

On Tuesday, a member of the town’s “green patrol” happened upon Félycia Lamy, 13, with hose in hand. She was in the midst of filling up a water balloon when, for only a moment, the hose was aimed at the asphalt. The officer in training passed by in that moment. Her six-year-old sister was hiding behind a tree. The green patrol member, part of a Granby program which hires students to enforce municipal bylaws related to the environment, called Félycia “ma’am” and demanded that she give him her identification. But Félycia told him she is “not a lady, but a child.”

A little wet asphalt was enough to warrant a hefty fine since the city’s bylaws prohibits residents from washing or cleaning their driveways with potable water, according to the officer. After he learned that Félycia was a teenager, he gave the ticket to her mother.

“If it would have been me who was watering the driveway, I would have paid the ticket without saying anything,” Lamy said. “But it was my girls, who were just having fun.”

Lamy was so mad that she took to Facebook to lament her situation. Part of the post read: “I go out to see what happened because I hear a stranger talking to my children, (and he explained) to me that he saw (her) watering the asphalt. If she would have been 14, she would have had a discount ticket, but given that she is 13, I am responsible for a full ticket.”

[kosciusko51]

Green Police

[tarawa]

That thought crossed my mind as well. Bunch of kids standing around with a garden hose and water balloons..... that petty little so-and-so shouldn’t have felt dry for a week.

[HamiltonJay]

1984 is alive and well