Disputing a bylaw ticket in BC?

stick2Herbs

stick2Herbs

Live.Laugh.Love <3
Feb 13, 2010
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Hello Bros,

Back in October thanks to our fucking nazi nanny government our my city banned fireworks :angryfire: Anyone from BC knows that halloween is the biggest event in the year for fireworks. Long story short some cop busted my ass and slapped me a $200 fine just for possession lol. Anyways I disputed it and thanks to our great legal system now, only 8 months later, will I be going to that court or whatever the fuck it is to dispute it.

Couple questions for anyone from bc that has disputed anything similar.

1. If you lose, are there any extra fees?

2. The cop originally said "don't worry Ill give these back" (refering to the fireworks) and later not only did he take em but he gave me a 200 buck fine. Would that hold up in court? Its basically my word against his, and sure my friends were there but Im not gonna drag em into this.

Probably gonna have to suck it up and pay the fine rofl. The governments taking more and more of our rights away. If I'm not hurting anybody/property, doing it during an appropriate holiday and time, they should stay out of my business. /rant

Shit, now that I think about it, I don't have anything that'll really hold up. Im praying to god he doesn't show up.
 


All I know is when I went to court to fight a ticket the first thing the judge said was... You are aware if you loose this dispute you are required to pay for the courts time, police officers time and the ticket.
 
Your government is very comparable to the Nazis because they banned fireworks. Is it because they only banned fireworks for the Jews & Gypsies?

Just wonderin...
 
I'm from the US but I'd venture to say that unless there are some gross discrepancies I'm not aware of (which is totally plausible) here is what you're probably looking at:

stick2Herbs said:
1. If you lose, are there any extra fees?
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No. You aren't charged extra because you asked for your day in court. You're entitled to defend yourself.

stick2Herbs said:
2. The cop originally said "don't worry Ill give these back" (refering to the fireworks) and later not only did he take em but he gave me a 200 buck fine. Would that hold up in court? Its basically my word against his, and sure my friends were there but Im not gonna drag em into this.
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I'm assuming you want to bring this up to get out of the ticket and not to get your fireworks back...lol (was a little unclear the way I read it). Anyway, you can bring this up but I can attest from personal experience that when its your word against a cops, 99.999% of the time the judge is going to take theirs. It will help to dress very professionally and have your shit together regarding the whole matter, but in the end...when its your word against his...you'll lose UNLESS you have evidence to the contrary. Plus, if you're telling the court that the cop said he'd give them back to you, you're admitting guilt. Not really a good thing when you're trying to get out of paying a fine for said crime.

stick2Herbs said:
Probably gonna have to suck it up and pay the fine rofl.
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Yup. Live and learn.
 
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Dare Devil said:
I'm from the US but I'd venture to say that unless there are some gross disparages I'm not aware of (which is totally plausible) here is what you're probably looking at:



No. You aren't charged extra because you asked for your day in court. You're entitled to defend yourself.



I'm assuming you want to bring this up to get out of the ticket and not to get your fireworks back...lol (was a little unclear the way I read it). Anyway, you can bring this up but I can attest from personal experience that when its your word against a cops, 99.999% of the time the judge is going to take theirs. It will help to dress very professionally and have your shit together regarding the whole matter, but in the end...when its your word against his...you'll lose UNLESS you have evidence to the contrary. Plus, if you're telling the court that the cop said he'd give them back to you, you're admitting guilt. Not really a good thing when you're trying to get out of paying a fine for said crime.



Yup. Live and learn.
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Thanks, +rep. Yep, considering I'm underage the judge would probably think I'm trying to play with my luck. Oh well, now I'm going to look like a jackass when I walk in and have absolutely no argument. Time to pull a Peter Griffin.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDhThhrd_UY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDhThhrd_UY[/ame]
 
stick2Herbs said:
Thanks, +rep. Yep, considering I'm underage the judge would probably think I'm trying to play with my luck. Oh well, now I'm going to look like a jackass when I walk in and have absolutely no argument. Time to pull a Peter Griffin.
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Not necessarily. By all means, check first to make sure you won't have to pay any additional court costs by going to court and if you don't, then go. It'll be a learning experience for you, if nothing else. When they read the charges, don't incriminate yourself but don't lie either. I dunno if Canadians have an equivalent of the 5th Amendment or not, but its worth looking into. Basically, you can stand in front of the judge and (again, without totally incriminating yourself) state that you've learned a valuable lesson from this experience and respectfully request that the fine be dropped or at least reduced. Even better, before court even starts see if you can approach the cop and tell him that same spiel and ask him to drop or reduce the fine.

If your municipality is anything like the vast majority of others, they get almost nothing but scum and lowlifes through there on a daily basis. It'll likely be refreshing that a "respectful young gentleman" is willing to go the extra mile to admit that he learned from the experience and to ask for leniency - again, while not entirely incriminating yourself.

Or jut pay the $200 and make it back within a few hours of working on a good campaign. Your choice. :)
 
You can also go to your local municipal court on a day when the Justice of the Peace is there and plead to have the fine lowered.

Since you're going to have to pay something anyhow, a trip to the JP is faster and they can lower the fine significantly. It will give you a chance to go one on one with someone, as opposed to standing in a room full of people.
 
Dare Devil said:
Not necessarily. By all means, check first to make sure you won't have to pay any additional court costs by going to court and if you don't, then go. It'll be a learning experience for you, if nothing else. When they read the charges, don't incriminate yourself but don't lie either. I dunno if Canadians have an equivalent of the 5th Amendment or not, but its worth looking into. Basically, you can stand in front of the judge and (again, without totally incriminating yourself) state that you've learned a valuable lesson from this experience and respectfully request that the fine be dropped or at least reduced. Even better, before court even starts see if you can approach the cop and tell him that same spiel and ask him to drop or reduce the fine.

If your municipality is anything like the vast majority of others, they get almost nothing but scum and lowlifes through there on a daily basis. It'll likely be refreshing that a "respectful young gentleman" is willing to go the extra mile to admit that he learned from the experience and to ask for leniency - again, while not entirely incriminating yourself.

Or jut pay the $200 and make it back within a few hours of working on a good campaign. Your choice. :)
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Funny thing is, the cop said I'm one of the nicest and behaved young guys hes met/given a ticket too and if he didn't have he wouldn't give me a ticket, wouldn't be surprised at all if the cop vouched for me for having the fine lowered. Course, he could've just turned a blind eye, but they were required to give out 20 tickets that night (according to my friend who's dads friend is a cop).

I think I'm going to just admit it, cause theres nothing to dispute really. Dress decently, and respectfully ask if I could have my fine lowered being that its my first ticket ever blah blah.

Thanks for the help, really appreciate it.
 
IMHopeful said:
You can also go to your local municipal court on a day when the Justice of the Peace is there and plead to have the fine lowered.

Since you're going to have to pay something anyhow, a trip to the JP is faster and they can lower the fine significantly. It will give you a chance to go one on one with someone, as opposed to standing in a room full of people.
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Thanks for the advice, but I like daredevil's idea, it's good experience. Sure, I'll probably almost shit my pants, but its good experience for the future.
 
I do not know abut the Canadian system but for small infractions in the US you can talk to the prosecutor - in my personal case it was the city attorney when I was busted for fireworks "out of season" (after 4th of July) - prior to the case going to court.

Try to make your case to him/her before court, NOT the judge. Assuming your record is otherwise clean just say tell him it was a one time thing and you've never been in trouble before. Keep whatever the cop told you out of it. Then ask him what the minimum fine would be IF you plead guilty.

Since you did it - and since you are willing to man up and admit it - the local prosecutor has a lot better things to do than worry about you. He/She will usually recommend the minimum fine to the judge and often it will be waived if you stay out of future trouble.

Your goal is to say as little as possible to the judge except showing how upstanding of a citizen you are and you will plead guilty.

In my case I got $250 out of a possible $1000 fine. I could have also gotten up to 40 hours of community service - I got zero.
 
^^It's the same as going to a JP here in Canada. When you step into the courtroom, there is different rules for sure. Kind of like the justice system has to save face in public. When you're standing in the courtroom they have to take everything you say into consideration, good and bad.

Experience or not Stick2Herbs, you may be setting yourself up to pay more by doing it your way. All the power to you for manning up though.
 
stick2Herbs said:
Thanks for the advice, but I like daredevil's idea, it's good experience. Sure, I'll probably almost shit my pants, but its good experience for the future.
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Any chance of your parents going with you? Judges will +rep you if you show with your parents by your side, all dressed nicely and being polite. Make sure you shave and look super young.

It has helped in my previous court cases.
 
You could spend a bunch of time doing research, time travelling to and from court, time spent waiting around for your court appointment which is never on time, time in court, you might lose, you might have to pay more, all for something that was illegal and has been for quite some time in BC. i.e. it's illegal in all municipalities that I know of for minors to be in possession of fireworks.

Or you could pay your $200 fine and get some work done that day.
 
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