Cold Lake, AB – Over the course of the winter, the City of Cold Lake received several complaints related to noise violations during the City’s designated quiet hours from 10pm to 7am during the week, and between 10pm and 9am on weekends and holidays.

While a few of the complaints involved road clearing, the majority of the complaints were associated with snow clearing on parking lots attached to commercial businesses.

The Noise and Public Nuisance Bylaw was initially passed in November of 2014, for the expressed purpose of introducing quiet hours to the City for benefit of the residents. The restrictions during these quiet hours are quite detailed, but there was room for a few exceptions. These included special events and noise from snow-clearing in public parking lots.

Administration felt that the designation of public parking lots required clearer language and requested Council to pass a motion to amend the bylaw to include parking lots attached to commercial businesses.

“We’d like to think we can do a lot of things, but one thing we can’t control is the weather, and Cold Lake can get a lot of snow on a regular basis,” said Mayor Craig Copeland. “For many large commercial lots, it’s impossible to clear snow during the business day, so it becomes a balancing act between ensuring it’s quiet at certain times, while also allowing businesses to keep their parking lots clear and safe for use. In the end, council felt that we needed to be flexible and make sure that our rules were not preventing lots from being cleared of snow.”

Council noted that snow clearing, whether it is municipal or private, is not a cheap program and there is a naturally built-in time frame to when clearing can be done. Limiting those hours would significantly impact services level and/or require more resources, which all comes at a significant cost that would be likely be passed onto consumers.

“Snow removal can be an inconvenience at any time of the day, but after a snowfall, our goal and the goal of business owners is to get the streets and parking lots cleared, so residents can go about their business in a safe and timely fashion,” said Mayor Copeland.

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