Shouldn't They Be Protecting And Serving? Not Annoying Citizens.

So. A student gets fined $628 for sitting on a park ledge?

It's incidences like this that make me wonder what is wrong with some police officers. It was incredible enough to be picked up by UPI.

I used to work at Place Ville-Marie - Montreal's tallest building. In the center of the complex was nothing but ledges that people used to sit on, talk and eat lunch. Why aren't the cops circling PVM if it's against the law? Indeed, you'll have to give every single person (that would run in the thousands) across the city for this "infraction" which isn't an infraction at all.

Of course, this won't happen and the police aren't that petty but it makes you wonder what were the conditions that led them to give a ticket because the logic behind giving this student a fine is beyond comprehension. After all, we are not a police state.

Here's a letter to the editor concerning this episode:

"I would be more than happy to help this poor student contest this ticket, as it is one of the most absurd cases of police interference I've heard of.

I am a landscape architect, and I very clearly remember one of my classes being given by the landscape architect who designed Parc Emilie Gamelin (Square Berri at the time).

He explained to our class, in great detail, his thinking behind the design. One example is that when walking on de Maisonneuve Blvd., the ledge creates what is known as a "Ha Ha," where the immediate foreground and background are visible, but the actual park in between is not. Another aspect was that the large sculptures seen right behind Brendan Jones are intended to balance the orientation of the park.

Which gets to the point: This landscape architect (name available upon request) also told us that the park ledges were specifically designed as sitting areas. He told us precisely what architect Gavin Affleck mentions in the story; that an opportunity for "successful multi-use" should always be taken.

There is a very good reason why those granite ledges are the perfect height to act as a bench: they're meant to sit on. That's actually proper use of city structures."

Jeremy Glenn, Dorval