Everything the City of Victoria does should not be viewed through a tent-city lens. A social media storm has erupted because a bylaw officer warned the owner of a dog that the animal should be leashed. How can the city be picking on a harmless dog when people are flouting the law left and right on the courthouse lawn?
Cody, a golden retriever in his senior years, likes to loaf near the doorway of his owner鈥檚 Fort Street store, accepting the adulation of his many admirers. The animal control officer has warned the owner that the dog must be leashed, and the owner says she will comply.
Many of the subsequent Facebook rants contrast the alleged official neglect to enforce laws at tent city with the actions of a dutiful animal control officer.
Sometimes there are either/or situations, but this isn鈥檛 one of them. The failure to enforce laws in one particular situation does not mean all laws should be ignored.
We sympathized with the implied suggestion that officialdom could have let this particular sleeping dog lie 鈥� he was doing no harm, posed no danger and gave many people much pleasure 鈥� but all law enforcement should not come to a halt because of what is happening at tent city.
It鈥檚 the kind of attitude that often rears its childish head: Why do I get a ticket for running a red light in my car when cyclists get away with it all the time? But another person鈥檚 wrong does not justify yours.
Official responses to the tent-city situation have been less than satisfactory, but that doesn鈥檛 mean the city or provincial governments should stop trying to do their jobs elsewhere.
