While most Vancouverites are working from home these days, that isn’t the case for Vancouver’s park rangers.
As the novel coronavirus continues to spread, they’ve been continuing to hit the pavement— or rather, the city’s parks and beaches—to spread the message about the importance of staying apart.
Between March 20 and March 31, rangers issued 1,179 warnings, averaging nearly 100 warnings each day, explained Howard Normann, the Vancouver Park Board’s director of parks. Those warnings aren’t typically given to one person, he added— “Often it's to the group of five, six, 10 people.”
In April, rangers “continue to issue the verbal warnings, but because the weather really hasn't been that good, they haven't done that much,” he said. “We’re not writing anybody up at this point.”
Although park rangers don’t have the authority to dole out fines “at this point,” the City of Vancouver can fine individuals failing to comply with physical distancing measures up to $1000 under an emergency bylaw.
However, Normann said he’s not aware of any individual fines issued at Vancouver’s parks yet, while last week, both the city and Vancouver Police Department dispelled any rumours that either authority was actively ticketing individuals for failing to practise social distancing.
“We're still taking that approach of trying to educate people,” Normann explained. “To be quite frank, I think the majority of people actually know, they just get caught up in talking or doing something else and just sort of forget.
“Vancouver is a bit like that—we love to be outside and we love to do our thing, and I think they just need the reminder once in a while,” he continued.
Last weekend, some of those reminders were given to groups who started “three different fires on the beach at night,” which, according to Normann, were attended by “way more than five or six” people.
That said, Normann admitted he was pretty impressed by how people were behaving on the seawall when he stepped out of the park board’s offices to observe this week. “People were just being polite and kind of waiting, or stepping aside, or, you know, taking the long way around.”
While he remains “cautiously optimistic,” Normann anticipates that encouraging physical distancing at the city’s parks and beaches will only become more of a challenge as the weather begins to warm up.
In addition to having its rangers educate park visitors about physical distancing, the Park Board has also removed logs from several of the city’s beaches, and closed all outdoor recreation areas, like playgrounds and sports fields.
While getting outside is, for most of us, a requirement to staying sane while physical distancing, Normann is imploring everyone to seek that fresh air close to home.
“Try to get that exercise, that recreation out in your own neighborhood,” he said. “Try not to travel down to Stanley Park or Kits or Jericho, because the parking lots are all closed, and there's not a lot of room to park.”
If people continue to travel to these destinations, “it creates the next level of” measures the park board will be forced to take, Normann cautioned.
“Then we have to go a little further and we would prefer not to go any further. We really don't want to close anything else down.”
