Ontario family selling house over new Christmas lights bylaw

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Colten Williams began putting together his Christmas light show a decade ago at the behest of his grandmother, who was inspired by light shows she had seen on TV.

But trouble started brewing in Kingsville after several neighbours lodged complaints about their street being crowded with cars for six weeks every year.

This month, the city enacted a new bylaw that would force the Williams family to apply for a permit for their display while also placing restrictions on the number of hours they would be allowed to leave the lights on.

“They basically limited the amount of hours I could have my show from about 28 hours a week down to 10 hours a week,” Williams said. “So you have 500 hours, 600 hours worth of set up time just to have 40 hours the lights on all month long. That’s an insane amount of work.”

Rogers said the council is sad to see them turn off the lights but said the show had outgrown its location as well.

“We were saddened to learn that the Williams family will not move forward with their light display this year,” he said.

“Our discussions with the family last year at a council meeting we both agreed that they had outgrown the neighbourhood.”

Rogers went on to say that the city had tried to work with the family to find an alternative location but was unable to meet their demands.

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How bad was the car situation that prompted this level of intervention?

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How is this not the onion?!

FlareHeart

Buncha Scrooges over there in Kingsville Apparently. Those massive restrictions on hours plus the requirement for a “permit” -cough-moneygrab-cough- are just ridiculous. I’d love for there to be a light show like that in my neighborhood.

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“We both agreed they had outgrown the neighbourhood”

What a class act.

I hope they find a better town to show off dem lights.

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Permits are agreements with a processing fee.

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If you’re selling your house because you can’t put the Christmas lights that you want you’re an idiot.

tiredofsametab

It sounds like people who live around there were taking ridiculous times to get in and out of their houses because of the traffic. This would also be a bad situation for emergency services such as ambulances and firetrucks, potentially.

Skeezix

Because you dont live there and it’s not you being inconvenienced. So you have no sympathy for the neighbors.

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I feel like this should be overridden by the guarantee to freedom of expression

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I feel like I need to see pics of the parking situation/attendance on the street. Like, yeah… Lights are fun and that sucks, but also… this must have been a pretty big fucking problem if it warranted this kind of response. Article says the show would end after 20 minutes and immediately an entirely new crowd would filter in to replace the previous one. Sounds like lot of vehicles waiting to get in to view it in a residential neighborhood not designed for that kind of volume. I’d probably bitch to the council too after several years of enduring that.

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Honestly, sounds like a traffic enforcement problem.

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So it’s a traffic problem, not a capacity problem.

Ban on street parking, direct people to the closest lots. Problem solved.

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Colton Williams - Category 8 Winner: Light-O-Rama Shining Bright Contest 2022

tiredofsametab

If it's like the places I grew up, people are driving through neighborhoods. They're not parking, but driving at basically a crawl (sometimes pausing to take pictures). If they enforced local traffic only (i.e. anyone who wanted to see it had to go on foot), that would solve the issue so long as the parking exists somewhere.

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I’m sure there’s some particular joy in doing this to your own house, but the city should hire this guy to do a big display in the city centre. Probably more adequate parking, people maybe make a night of it and go to local restaurants, you could pick your place to minimise upsetting neighbours.

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I have sympathy for the neighbours, I don’t have sympathy for the people with the lights who are ridiculous

aard

Over here in Europe we’d just arrive by public transport.

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And really the big problem here is the cars, 20 cars takes up a lot more space than even 60 people. People could even fit on the lawn if space allows. The cars make noise honking and running, they are the ones with bright lights. If everyone got off a bus, watched a show, and walked to the next stop it wouldn’t be nearly as problematic. Perhaps a designated area nearby where cars are expected to park and people and their family could walk to see the show could have been a solution.

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Yea but Canada refuses to build a functional country. Hell we can’t even keep bike lanes installed without drivers feeling attacked.