A peanut too far

Westmount resident stunned as a minor
squirrel-feeding infraction leads to $455 fine

APOLITICAL BUT ANIMAL-FRIENDLY:
Bruce Kert, with unfed squirrels in Westmount Park

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

A 57-year-old self-described dog-walker and musician may be the latest victim of the state apparatus’s crushing of civil liberties and fundamental freedoms. Westmounter Bruce Kert was walking his girlfriend’s dog through Westmount Park on Sept. 14, 2006 when, spotting two peanuts on the ground, he picked them up and tossed them in the general direction of a nearby squirrel. This inconsequential act then brought down upon him the full wrath of the state security organ, in the form of a Westmount public security officer—“You know, those guys in the yellow trucks,” he says. He would end up with a bill for a whopping $455.

Kert says the security officer approached him and, without warning or sense of humour, issued him a $75 in contravention of Section 16-C of bylaw 257, which prohibits the feeding of “any pigeon, seagull, squirrel, other wild animal or vermin” (the same by-law, adopted in 1912, casts quite a legislative net: among other things, it also prohibits the situating of “undertaker, embalmer or funeral homes” within 100 feet of a dwelling, the locomotion of “individual wagons propelled or driven by mechanical power and wagons or other vehicles of heavy draught drawn by muscular force” between “half-past eight in the afternoon and half-past six in the forenoon,” and the “uncleanliness as to become a nuisance to the neighbours or to any person” of “any lot of ground or property, stables, cattle-sheds, pigsties, outhouses, privies and yards connected with such lots or building”). Kert thinks the security guard may have been in an especially foul mood due to the previous day’s events: the Dawson College shootings.

Kert then went to the downtown municipal court to contest the fine, and was told he would receive a subpoena in the mail. The subpoena, however, never came, he claims, although he has since been told that bailiffs had at least twice tried to reach him at his home. It turns out that, since he did not appear in court to contest the ticket, he lost by default. In the years and months that followed, the initial $50 fine and additional $25 in court fees ballooned to a stunning $455, thanks to usurious interest rates. There was also an arrest warrant issued in his name.

Baffled, Kert has gone on the offensive. He first got a $40 stay of conviction, and then went public, taking his story to the press. His story featured on CBC’s As It Happens, Q92, national radio host Charles Adler’s show, the Journal de Montréal, the Westmount Examiner, the Suburban and the West Island Chronicle. At least one pro-squirrel blog has championed his cause.

What irks Kert, he says, is the lack of communication regarding the prohibition of feeding local fauna. “There are no signs stating you can’t feed wildlife,” he says. “And this is a pretty petty kind of thing. They should be concentrating on graffiti, vandalism, people going through stop signs or speaking on cell phones while they’re driving.

“I’m not a political person, I’m just defending myself from a petty, stupid thing,” he says. “There was an arrest warrant out for me. If I’d gone to the airport, or was stopped for jaywalking, I’d be thrown in jail.”

Kert will be back in court next Wednesday, Jan. 21. In the meantime, he says, he has written and recorded “Squirrel-gate,” a blues song, and is becoming used to his moment as a media oddity. “I’m having fun with it,” he says. “I think it’s a riot.”