Castlegar residents who don’t like to pay their bylaw tickets on time will see their fines climb the longer they procrastinate if new bylaw amendments proceed as planned.
Graduated fines are being proposed for wildlife attractant, business licence and smoking offences.
The graduated structure sets a lower fine if the ticket is paid within 30 days and a higher fine after that.
City staff recommended the change to provide a greater incentive to pay the fines on time, hopefully resulting in a reduction in the reliance on collection agencies.
Wildlife attractant offences start at $100 for infractions such as feeding wildlife, failing to store garbage in a wildlife-resistant container, failing to secure your wildlife resistant container, failing to remove fruit from the ground and leaving an outdoor fridge or freezer accessible to wildlife.
Those fines would then jump to $200 after 30 days.
Leaving antifreeze or paint accessible to wildlife will cost you $200 if you pay on time or $400 after 30 days.
Business offences would start at $100 for not having a business licence, providing false information on an application and the unlawful removal of a notice of licence revocation.
After 30 days, those infractions would jump to $200.
Fines for carrying on with business while a licence is suspended would start at $200 and then climb to $400.
The fine for smoking tobacco or cannabis in a prohibited place would cost $100 if paid on time, or $250 after 30 days.