Montreal man fined $455. for feeding squirrel

Westmount wins this month's idiot award.

Updated: Thursday, November 20, 2008

A Montreal man fined $455 for feeding a squirrel in a Westmount park said he'll fight legal action taken against him.

Bruce Kert, who also had an arrest warrant issued against him, vows to get his day in court to end the legal tangle that snared him two years ago, after he threw peanuts at a squirrel during one of his regular long walks through the affluent Montreal neighbourhood. It's illegal to feed squirrels in Westmount.

Kert was walking through a park area when he came upon some peanuts on the ground, and "threw them at a squirrel," he recounted in an interview with CBC News.

A public security officer with the city of Westmount caught him in the act, and issued him a $75 fine under a 1912 bylaw (257, section 16-C).

He didn't pay the fine on the grounds he was going to contest it.

But when he went to the local courthouse he discovered the ticket has ballooned to $455 because he had missed his court date, he said.

Authorities had also issued a warrant for his arrest.

The fine is a bit obsessive and petty, Kert said. "If somebody goes out with big bags, and deliberately does it every day, then I could see it being a problem," he said. "But someone who just does it once in a while, it is no big deal."

The bylaw is rarely enforced for single-time offences, but aims to keep large-scale offenders in check, said Westmount public security Sgt. David Sedgwick. "We get people coming in the parks with bags of bread and nuts, it creates a mess, and also attracts other vermin," he said.

Kert received a stay of conviction and a new court date for January.