A report shows that municipal bylaw officers were kept on their toes during Canada Day weekend and throughout the second quarter of 2020.
A special category was created this year in relation to COVID-19, said Steve Harvey, Tiny Township's chief municipal law enforcement officer.
The second quarter report that covers the April 1 to June 30 period saw a substantial number of complaints, he said.
"We received a total of 1,179 complaints over that quarter compared to 467 last year," said Harvey. "You can almost break that in half, 588 of those complaints were in our new category of COVID-19 related issues, leaving the remaining as bylaw issues."
The report further breaks down the pandemic-related complaints into various categories.
Officers registered 511 complaints around beach use restrictions, which were put in place April 4 and lifted June 5.
Another 47 complaints were registered for social gatherings over the limit permitted by the province on public or private property.
Officers filed 12 complaints regarding non-essential businesses being open and dealt with another 18 complaints around the use of recreation and park amenities.
This year, said Harvey, parking complaints also increased to 77 compared to 23 last year.
"Staff analyzed the complaints and believes that the increase in complaints is directly correlated with COVID-19 and residents' concerns about the number of people at the beaches," he added.
As well, noise complaints also increased to 92, as compared to 45 in 2019.
Officers had issued 758 parking tickets by the end of June, compared to 335 last year.
The bike program started a bit late this year, said Harvey, owing to the pandemic.
"We got 266 hours in and 1,541kilometres travelled over this time period," he said.
Talking specifically about numbers on the Canada Day weekend, Harvey said the numbers indicate a comparision of a five-day weekend this year to four-day weekends in the past two years.
"There were 15 charges, 14 of those were regarding fires when there was a fire ban in effect," he said. "Over that weekend, we did 726 parking tickets compared to 208 in the previous year.
"Parking and fire complaints were the highest in those days because of the parking situation and the fire ban in effect," said Harvey.
The report shows that out of the 726 parking tickets, the highest number of beach-related tickets (123) was for the Balm Beach area, whereas 214 tickets were issued for parking violations in various other areas around the township.
In the complaints category, officers registered 112 complaints compared to 43 last year.
Bylaw enforcement officers also clocked about 50 hours over the five-day period, riding about 181 kilometres.
"The statistics show that our department has been working extremely had to try and do as much as we can," said Harvey. "As the saying goes, we were going from fire to fire."
Coun. Cindy Hastings acknowledged the efforts of bylaw officers.
"I've heard some great feedback that your officers are working exceptionally hard," she said.
