Just because you've always done something doesn't make it legal.
That's the response from North Vancouver RCMP after a complaint about officers handing out tickets to drivers who use the roundabout at the foot of Chesterfield Avenue as a place to drop off passengers for the SeaBus.
Former resident and frequent visitor Chris Rasmussen got off with a warning Nov. 21 but he saw plenty of other drivers getting tickets when he dropped his wife off to get to work downtown.
"For 27 years, people have been doing that and now they're starting to ticket people," he said. "If I wasn't in such a hurry, I would have asked them to give me a ticket so I could take it to court."
Rasmussen was told officers were stepping up enforcement in the no-stopping zone because of accidents, but that doesn't make sense, he said.
"Why the hell have a roundabout there where the SeaBus and mass transit is if you can't stop and drop people off?" Asked what he'd have the RCMP do instead, Rasmussen is plain.
"Uh, go fight crime - people breaking into houses, not paying taxes. Go arrest some senators - anything but the people who are paying your wages trying to go to work," he said.
But the RCMP were simply carrying out their duties as requested by the City of North Vancouver, said Cpl. Richard De Jong, North Vancouver RCMP spokesman.
"It's always been a no-stopping zone. The city has directed and requested us to enforce that because there appears to be quite a long lineup of taxis in that area so it became a traffic problem and pedestrian safety issue," De Jong said. "It never was intended to be a drop-off point."
If it is any consolation, officers were handing out $30 bylaw infraction tickets, rather than Motor Vehicle Act violation tickets that come with a $121 penalty, De Jong said.
