City council’s is asking the Delta Police Department to increase patrols in the 2700-block 64 Street during the opening days of waterfowl hunting seasons for firearms-related violations.
It’s in response to continuing glass damage at a nearby greenhouse operation from stray projectiles. Last year, the operator of Houweling’s Nurseries Ltd. contacted the chair of the former Agricultural and Hunting Regulation Advisory Committee about the facility continuing to incur financial losses from replacing greenhouse glass damaged by stray pellet shots.
It’s a complaint that was first made back in 2017 but despite the city putting up signs at the 64 Street access point to educate hunters on the expected code of conduct, the problem persisted.
A staff report to council notes that the operator said the since October 2023, the greenhouse had 31 separate instances of reported glass damage, concentrated on the south-facing side of the buildings.
“Efforts have been made by regulators to increase the distance from the dyke that hunting is permitted as well as instructions for hunters to direct their shots to the south away from our property. While we appreciate those efforts, unfortunately, the damage has been increasing over the past 3 years with annual damage expected to exceed $100,000.00 from repairs and interruptions to operations. In 2022 police reports were filed due to pellets hitting the owner’s residence on the south side of our property. This winter before Christmas up to 60 pieces of glass that were compromised from pellet damage broke from the weight of the snow,” said general manager Ruben Houweling in a letter.
This summer, the Hunting Regulation Advisory Committee concluded that educational approaches have not been effective.
The staff report notes that the committee does not believe amending the bylaw to entirely close the area in the vicinity to all firearms discharge will be beneficial, as the hunters who are shooting landward are already in violation of the bylaw and the closure will instead penalize law-abiding hunters.
The committee believes that only an aggressive enforcement approach, where fines, and not warnings, are levied, will correct current poor behaviour, the report adds.
During council’s discussion on the report this week, Coun. Rod Binder, vice-chair of the committee, said the hunting community is also upset about the “few bad apples” breaking the rules, and a full closure to shooting in the area could be on the horizon if things don’t change.
