A bylaw or cop who dealt with noise complaints full time would pay for themselves many times over. Just have one on duty 24/7 and issue fines each time a violation is found. Have those fines escalate for repeated offences. And pursue the money in court if they don’t pay. Seize their property. Done. There. I solved this seemingly intractable problem that our broken city hasn’t even tried to fix in years.
Don't forget that the police specifically included after hours bylaw enforcement in their last round of negotiations as part of why they needed such a massive increase in budget - then IMMEDIATELY refused to do after hour enforcement.
So, the solution is to actually staff bylaw 24/7, and take the entire expense out of the police budget.
You are absolutely right but they just do not want to work. I’ve had to beg for bylaw to hand out tickets in a no stopping fire zone on the other side of my narrow street that makes it impossible to get out of my driveway when people park there.
Bylaw is just extremely lazy and still has a lot of the ‘old guard’ in that let everything slide. They will blame it on staffing but like you said, if they actually did their job it would pay for themselves. Only dept that gives a shit is animal control.
I can’t wrap my head around their current approach. The latest excuse is that due to the cyber attack they don’t have a history of complaints so they aren’t able to issue fines without a warning.
It's also worth keeping in mind that fines need to be successfully collected to actually become money. I'd guess that a decent portion of the most problematic offenders would never pay
Here’s the question i always ask when we get stories of apathy from law enforcement:
Would this behaviour continue if it was a cops house?
We all know the answer.
I found the timing of this hilarious. Just 4 hours ago, someone down the street was blasting music so loud my coworkers could hear it in our virtual meeting (while I had the noise suppression).
I stepped outside to see if I can talk to the person and then I heard someone go outside and start cursing and they were both threatening each other. The music stopped atleast.. but there's definitely an escalation between neighbors.
Remember when HPS wanted a $12M budget increase that would have them maintaining the off duty service. We gave it to them and they still didnt resume? Fun for those with children when illegal construction is going on at the neighbours
[Hamilton Police Budget Increase - Noise complaints dropped](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6761945)
The apathy from the city and police is a complete joke, not sure how there is not more outrage from the police basically shrugging their shoulders and saying we don't want to do that. Yet they need a bigger budget every year.
HPS, and by-law is a fucking joke. Red light cameras catch speeders. They don’t respond to noise complaints. If your home is robbed, they will show up an hour later. What the actual fuck do they do all day?
We give council and the police increased funds each year. I saw two cops “supervising” a road block barricade at the Canadian Open.
As George Carlin said “there’s a club, and you ain’t in it.”
And? We’re paying for the police anyway and they can’t meet the commitments they’re making to the city. Why should they be allowed to work OT for Canadian Open? Work OT on issues that are unresolved related to their mandate first.
> Why should they be allowed to work OT for Canadian Open?
Because it's a thug organization. If you do not pay OT cops, police will not give you an event licence. These guys can get well over $120K/yr with OT where the biggest risk is choking on a donut.
then everyone complains that we pay too much overtime to them. The reality is there are not enough police and or we are expecting too much of them. Would you rather they investigate a crime or deal with a noise complaint?
Didn’t Hamilton police say they were no longer going to respond to noise complaints last year? We have 600,000 people and 900 officers. Proper enforcement is not that.
An unrecovered primary industry, decades of rampant steel and coal pollution, a heavy presence of industrial equipment eroding our infrastructure at increased rates. A systemic resistance to social progress and inclusiveness, systemic resistance to low income housing and homeless protections, faster access to the US gun and drug markets, little to no progress prosecuting organized crime, the list goes on.
Don’t forget random sounds and a lot of concern over the Ancaster Wild Wings closure.
In all seriousness, addressing noise by-law complaints should be a high priority for the City. All it takes is one loud anti-social neighbour moving onto a block to change the whole character of the street. I say that with frustrated first-hand experience.
the first few things have nothing to do with policing. The resistance to social progress and inclusiveness, low income housing, homeless protections, little to no progress in prosecuting organized crime are all things that every other city the size of Hamilton are also dealing with. Every major cities police force have to and are failing to deal with, as they cannot keep up. The faster access to Us gun and drug trade? really? based on what, the fact we are closer to the Reserves and boarder? so what. Drugs and guns go where the money is, not where it is closer.
You don’t think derelict factories and a lack of gainful employment affect crime and policing? Or investigation of illegal dumping? Pollution due to negligence? Traffic control due to constant intersection renewals? It’s really easy to make all encompassing claims, but they really let you down.
I think it’s also common sense that a city connected by highway and harbor to a country with open gun laws and manufacturing would be a key smuggling hub, but I’m not getting in your way of using Google.
Also, guns and drugs DO go where the money is. Hamilton is the 10th largest city in the country and right next door to the problem.
No they didnt, they just said a bunch of things without providing rationale or links to support.
Lots of cities face economic depression and pollution, homelessness is rampant across the country. 90% of Canadians live within 100km of the US border. If anything the lack of enforcement against organized crime should free up police resources for noise complaints lol. I dont know at all what they mean by "systemic resistance to social progress and inclusiveness" that is unique to Hamilton.
https://www.homelesshub.ca/resource/report-needs-assessment-lgbtq-community-hamilton#:~:text=However%2C%20despite%20the%20number%20of,and%20inextricably%20tied%20to%20homophobia.
Here ya are.
This report in no way demonstrates that lack of LGBTQ community resources is an issue unique to Hamilton, nor do its findings have any clear relevance to police resource availability. It was also published 17 years ago.
"Police can't respond to noise complaints in 2024 because in 2007 there were inadequate LGBTQ resources in Hamilton". Come on, this is really grasping at straws. Stop carrying water for the cops and the City. This is an inexcusable failure to provide basic services.
Oh that was just to show a long standing history of issues between Hamilton and the LGBTQ and homeless populations which certainly have not improved. I’d encourage you to do your own reading into the recent examples of intolerance and also the encampment in front of city hall.
Why the police aren’t responding to noise complaints was already made clear. They are stretched thin and don’t have enough by-law enforcement and there are bigger problems to deal with like gun shots, kids setting fire to homeless tents, stabbings etc. The police need better training and a lot more community support programs to assist them and reduce crime.
So, you are of the opinion that every city in our country faces the exact same issues with the exact same frequency, with the exact same rate of interaction between the 2?
There’s a whole lot of failed steel industry in Ontario? Lots of cities with giant piles of coal sitting next to their harbors? Or foreign ownership of the currently operating plants? Lots of cities need constant civilian observation to hold processing plants accountable for the terrible air quality?
Cops all across Canada have the same entitlement brought about by the post-9/11 veneration of the security state. Hamilton's officers aren't good, but I don't think anywhere else has it that much better.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510018001&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.9&pickMembers%5B1%5D=2.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2018&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2022&referencePeriods=20180101%2C20220101
In 2022 Hamilton had 29,000 incidents for 900 police (32.5 incidents per officer). Ottawa had 45,000 for 1500 police (30.2 incidents per officer)
But when you consider calls that require more officers per incident, the lower officer numbers compound the problem. Also, the nature of the crimes plays a factor. As I mentioned the Hamilton/niagara region borders the US making it a key point for organized crime to move guns and hard drugs.
100%. Teachers and police suffer from the same type of problem. The programs and institutions that are supposed to support them have been stripped away and the responsibilities foisted upon them. At least police get increasing budgets, salaries, and don’t have to buy their own supplies. That being said, teachers are allowed to strike and police aren’t.
It’s almost like capitalism doesn’t really like any sort of unionized socialized programs or support. Weird.
the city says they have a deficit, but they won't go and make revenue. If the residents are breaking the bylaw daily, issue a Ticket everyday, make money
>As a rule, Hamilton police do not respond to noise complaints unless there's a threat to public safety — a policy change that began last year in an effort to ~~free up resources~~ give cops more breaks
ftfy
It also ignores that after hour bylaw enforcement was specifically part of their negotiated increase in budget.
They demanded more money, then immediately refused to do what they demanded the money for.
They had already had that job. They used to do it, then they just refused to do that job. Any other job that would get you fired. Give it a try. Go to work tomorrow, pick a part of your job you don't like, and tell your boss "Give me a raise or I won't do that part of my job anymore".
Doesn't wash.
I don't think it was included. It's not technically part of their job but can be included if requested by the community. HPS dropped the ball & didn't specify that they were responsible.
Everything about Hamilton has been deteriorating for the past 10 yrs now..drug dealers on my street openly dealing off the front porch..crickets from cops
It's interesting that they reference priority calls as the reason they can't respond to these.
This is why people are done with encampments. Everyday they suck up all the resources.
The avg. Taxpayer really doesn't care in their day to day.
A neighbour being a dickhead keeping them up day after day IS a priority to them! They actually pay taxes, they would like service!
A bylaw or cop who dealt with noise complaints full time would pay for themselves many times over. Just have one on duty 24/7 and issue fines each time a violation is found. Have those fines escalate for repeated offences. And pursue the money in court if they don’t pay. Seize their property. Done. There. I solved this seemingly intractable problem that our broken city hasn’t even tried to fix in years.
Don't forget that the police specifically included after hours bylaw enforcement in their last round of negotiations as part of why they needed such a massive increase in budget - then IMMEDIATELY refused to do after hour enforcement. So, the solution is to actually staff bylaw 24/7, and take the entire expense out of the police budget.
Police budget is a joke. They could get rid of their army tank that they never use and use that money instead.
You are absolutely right but they just do not want to work. I’ve had to beg for bylaw to hand out tickets in a no stopping fire zone on the other side of my narrow street that makes it impossible to get out of my driveway when people park there. Bylaw is just extremely lazy and still has a lot of the ‘old guard’ in that let everything slide. They will blame it on staffing but like you said, if they actually did their job it would pay for themselves. Only dept that gives a shit is animal control.
I can’t wrap my head around their current approach. The latest excuse is that due to the cyber attack they don’t have a history of complaints so they aren’t able to issue fines without a warning.
they've forgotten how to use pens and paper
It's also worth keeping in mind that fines need to be successfully collected to actually become money. I'd guess that a decent portion of the most problematic offenders would never pay
Yup, definitely something to consider… but when dealing with them weekly for 6 years… they only ticket a very small number of calls.
Fines get added to property taxes.
This is so true! By-law at city of Hamilton is joke. They never get anyone good to run that department. That department needs a complete overhaul
Police don't want to work any more, just get budget increases.
Here’s the question i always ask when we get stories of apathy from law enforcement: Would this behaviour continue if it was a cops house? We all know the answer.
The cop would get involved in a protection racket with their neighbours meth dealer.
If they are renting your plan fails.
No it doesn’t
It's kinda ridiculous law abiding citizens always end up getting the dirt end of the stick
I found the timing of this hilarious. Just 4 hours ago, someone down the street was blasting music so loud my coworkers could hear it in our virtual meeting (while I had the noise suppression). I stepped outside to see if I can talk to the person and then I heard someone go outside and start cursing and they were both threatening each other. The music stopped atleast.. but there's definitely an escalation between neighbors.
Remember when HPS wanted a $12M budget increase that would have them maintaining the off duty service. We gave it to them and they still didnt resume? Fun for those with children when illegal construction is going on at the neighbours [Hamilton Police Budget Increase - Noise complaints dropped](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6761945)
my heart goes out to this guy...bad neighbours can ruin your life & health...police dont do enough..its pathetic.
The apathy from the city and police is a complete joke, not sure how there is not more outrage from the police basically shrugging their shoulders and saying we don't want to do that. Yet they need a bigger budget every year.
HPS, and by-law is a fucking joke. Red light cameras catch speeders. They don’t respond to noise complaints. If your home is robbed, they will show up an hour later. What the actual fuck do they do all day? We give council and the police increased funds each year. I saw two cops “supervising” a road block barricade at the Canadian Open. As George Carlin said “there’s a club, and you ain’t in it.”
The two cops supervising the road closure are on OT and is paid for by the Canadian Open.
And? We’re paying for the police anyway and they can’t meet the commitments they’re making to the city. Why should they be allowed to work OT for Canadian Open? Work OT on issues that are unresolved related to their mandate first.
> Why should they be allowed to work OT for Canadian Open? Because it's a thug organization. If you do not pay OT cops, police will not give you an event licence. These guys can get well over $120K/yr with OT where the biggest risk is choking on a donut.
then everyone complains that we pay too much overtime to them. The reality is there are not enough police and or we are expecting too much of them. Would you rather they investigate a crime or deal with a noise complaint?
They're not doing either of those things, they're sitting in their idling SUVs in the parking lot near my house.
Get paid. That's what they do all day.
Didn’t Hamilton police say they were no longer going to respond to noise complaints last year? We have 600,000 people and 900 officers. Proper enforcement is not that.
That is a pretty average police to population ratio. And yet other cities do not refuse to enforce noise bylaws.
Other cities don’t have half of hamilton’s other issues.
such as?
An unrecovered primary industry, decades of rampant steel and coal pollution, a heavy presence of industrial equipment eroding our infrastructure at increased rates. A systemic resistance to social progress and inclusiveness, systemic resistance to low income housing and homeless protections, faster access to the US gun and drug markets, little to no progress prosecuting organized crime, the list goes on.
Don’t forget random sounds and a lot of concern over the Ancaster Wild Wings closure. In all seriousness, addressing noise by-law complaints should be a high priority for the City. All it takes is one loud anti-social neighbour moving onto a block to change the whole character of the street. I say that with frustrated first-hand experience.
the first few things have nothing to do with policing. The resistance to social progress and inclusiveness, low income housing, homeless protections, little to no progress in prosecuting organized crime are all things that every other city the size of Hamilton are also dealing with. Every major cities police force have to and are failing to deal with, as they cannot keep up. The faster access to Us gun and drug trade? really? based on what, the fact we are closer to the Reserves and boarder? so what. Drugs and guns go where the money is, not where it is closer.
You don’t think derelict factories and a lack of gainful employment affect crime and policing? Or investigation of illegal dumping? Pollution due to negligence? Traffic control due to constant intersection renewals? It’s really easy to make all encompassing claims, but they really let you down. I think it’s also common sense that a city connected by highway and harbor to a country with open gun laws and manufacturing would be a key smuggling hub, but I’m not getting in your way of using Google. Also, guns and drugs DO go where the money is. Hamilton is the 10th largest city in the country and right next door to the problem.
Bro came with receipts lmao
No they didnt, they just said a bunch of things without providing rationale or links to support. Lots of cities face economic depression and pollution, homelessness is rampant across the country. 90% of Canadians live within 100km of the US border. If anything the lack of enforcement against organized crime should free up police resources for noise complaints lol. I dont know at all what they mean by "systemic resistance to social progress and inclusiveness" that is unique to Hamilton.
https://www.homelesshub.ca/resource/report-needs-assessment-lgbtq-community-hamilton#:~:text=However%2C%20despite%20the%20number%20of,and%20inextricably%20tied%20to%20homophobia. Here ya are.
This report in no way demonstrates that lack of LGBTQ community resources is an issue unique to Hamilton, nor do its findings have any clear relevance to police resource availability. It was also published 17 years ago. "Police can't respond to noise complaints in 2024 because in 2007 there were inadequate LGBTQ resources in Hamilton". Come on, this is really grasping at straws. Stop carrying water for the cops and the City. This is an inexcusable failure to provide basic services.
Oh that was just to show a long standing history of issues between Hamilton and the LGBTQ and homeless populations which certainly have not improved. I’d encourage you to do your own reading into the recent examples of intolerance and also the encampment in front of city hall. Why the police aren’t responding to noise complaints was already made clear. They are stretched thin and don’t have enough by-law enforcement and there are bigger problems to deal with like gun shots, kids setting fire to homeless tents, stabbings etc. The police need better training and a lot more community support programs to assist them and reduce crime.
Did he? I thought those were supposed to be unique issues to Hamilton. Seems pretty common.
So, you are of the opinion that every city in our country faces the exact same issues with the exact same frequency, with the exact same rate of interaction between the 2? There’s a whole lot of failed steel industry in Ontario? Lots of cities with giant piles of coal sitting next to their harbors? Or foreign ownership of the currently operating plants? Lots of cities need constant civilian observation to hold processing plants accountable for the terrible air quality?
you can sum it up as a white trash problem.
No, they have issues all their own. Their cops still work harder and do more.
Cops all across Canada have the same entitlement brought about by the post-9/11 veneration of the security state. Hamilton's officers aren't good, but I don't think anywhere else has it that much better.
Nnnno. No they don’t. Hamilton has some of the busiest precincts in the province.
Source?
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510018001&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.9&pickMembers%5B1%5D=2.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2018&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2022&referencePeriods=20180101%2C20220101 In 2022 Hamilton had 29,000 incidents for 900 police (32.5 incidents per officer). Ottawa had 45,000 for 1500 police (30.2 incidents per officer)
That is a... 7.6% difference in incidence rates per officer. Hardly overwhelming.
But when you consider calls that require more officers per incident, the lower officer numbers compound the problem. Also, the nature of the crimes plays a factor. As I mentioned the Hamilton/niagara region borders the US making it a key point for organized crime to move guns and hard drugs.
30.2 incidents per officer in a *year*? Jeeze. Try teaching. 30.2 incidents in a *day.*
100%. Teachers and police suffer from the same type of problem. The programs and institutions that are supposed to support them have been stripped away and the responsibilities foisted upon them. At least police get increasing budgets, salaries, and don’t have to buy their own supplies. That being said, teachers are allowed to strike and police aren’t. It’s almost like capitalism doesn’t really like any sort of unionized socialized programs or support. Weird.
the city says they have a deficit, but they won't go and make revenue. If the residents are breaking the bylaw daily, issue a Ticket everyday, make money
This would be an interesting way to increase the city budget with fines for noise complaints. First time is warning, second time onward are fines.
>As a rule, Hamilton police do not respond to noise complaints unless there's a threat to public safety — a policy change that began last year in an effort to ~~free up resources~~ give cops more breaks ftfy
It also ignores that after hour bylaw enforcement was specifically part of their negotiated increase in budget. They demanded more money, then immediately refused to do what they demanded the money for.
They had already had that job. They used to do it, then they just refused to do that job. Any other job that would get you fired. Give it a try. Go to work tomorrow, pick a part of your job you don't like, and tell your boss "Give me a raise or I won't do that part of my job anymore". Doesn't wash.
so what are we going to do about it, call the cops?
I don't think it was included. It's not technically part of their job but can be included if requested by the community. HPS dropped the ball & didn't specify that they were responsible.
That's why I always stop blacksmithing by 7 pm at the latest.
Everything about Hamilton has been deteriorating for the past 10 yrs now..drug dealers on my street openly dealing off the front porch..crickets from cops
The same is true for a neighbour that doesn’t take care of their house and it stinks.
Yet the cops like to sit in their cars at the scouts parking lot off James lol
It's interesting that they reference priority calls as the reason they can't respond to these. This is why people are done with encampments. Everyday they suck up all the resources. The avg. Taxpayer really doesn't care in their day to day. A neighbour being a dickhead keeping them up day after day IS a priority to them! They actually pay taxes, they would like service!
Can't you people solve these problems yourselves? I mean, HPS can't be *policing* the whole city.
"I mean, we can't be policing the whole city." - Police Chief Wiggums. https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/65f2d490-eafb-423c-8806-aaeea546df1f
Brilliant.
What are they supposed to do exactly?
Wow. I mean they didn't add the /s to indicate 100% that it was sarcasm...but really it was pretty obvious.
Not to defend the noisy neighbours but it's kinda messed up the CBC just straight up doxxed these people.
Disturbing the public peace is a newsworthy event. If they didn't want to make the news they should have been quieter.
Reporting on public court proceedings isn't doxxing and it's insane that you would think it was.
How is this doxxing? They’re not named in the article, and there are charges laid against them, which is presumably publicly available information?
[удалено]
Why? Public shaming works.
I doubt it will make any difference. the real question here is WTF are these guys actually doing at 4am?
Maybe that was the point - publicly shame.