I was reading the new edition of The Guelph Tribune this morning, and I came across a rather terse letter to the editor. I couldn't find it on the Trib website, so I now re-write it verbatim:"A sorry sign of the times?
"On St. Patrick's Day I was having a quiet meal on a restaurant on Carden Street when two drunk students lurched up to the front door and relieved themselves in full view. It was 6:30 pm, still daylight.
"The waitress told me that on her way in to work about a half-hour before, she had passed students urinating on the steps of the Church of Our Lady.
"Is it just me or is the population of rowdy drunken students increasing in beautiful downtown Guelph? I welcome feedback."
-Melissa Campbell, Guelph
To wit, I offer my feedback.
No it's not you, it's your perception. Generally our personal experiences inform our worldview. We hear stories about violence on the news and we think our community is violent in spite of reputable statistics that say the rate of violent incidents has gone down. So you had an unfortunate run-in with a pair of defective samples of humanity and you heard of another second hand from your waitress, but that doesn't necessarily mean that debauchery is on an uptick in the downtown.
My second thought concerns your assertion that these individuals were "students", meaning University of Guelph students, I presume. As a resident of the City of Guelph and a former student and student journalist at the U of G, I've been on both sides of this issue, but to my experience, anyone old enough to been seen drinking or being drunk is corralled into a broadly defined category of "student". Now to be fair, students can get rowdy, disrespectful and downright rude, but unless they were wearing a piece of clothing or had some other identifying mark that says they're affiliated with the university, then a "student" they need not necessarily be.
Next is the culture. Quick, tell me who St. Patrick was and what he's famous for? What time did he live in? When was he canonized? Who and where is he the patron saint of (besides Ireland)? If you can answer 3 out of 5 of those questions without referencing Wikipedia, then drink hardy with a clean conscience. The rest you, you're just looking for an excuse to consume mass quantities, aren't you? That's okay, just don't rub mine (or Melissa Campbell's) face in it.
One factoid of perhaps dubious truthiness that I've always enjoyed was that before the invention of indoor plumbing in Paris, a good pair of boots would last you a year. This is because human -ahem- waste would be deposited in a pot and thrown out the nearest window. Fortunately, things aren't that bad, but the notion of comfort with which some people have in using the city's back alleys, let alone the sidewalks, as a urinal is truly galling. Maybe the next time I'm in an establishment and I have an excess of phlegm I should start spitting on the floor.
The ideal solution: Get by-law officers out in force during busy nights at the bars. The police are already, but let's leave them the job of breaking up brawls and the other dangerous stuff that the police should, and do, prioritize before the loose leakers. Get by-law officers out and looking for the guys peeing against the doors of businesses and the steps of churches, but forget this $240 fine stuff. Double it! Really hit the scofflaws in their pocket books. Several weekends of this and hopefully it'll be message received. Next, go after people that dump half eaten Sun Sun's.
I wonder though, is this likely? Probably not. For it's easier to say to people "if you're going to piss in the street, fine, just do it in one of these two buckets." Did it work? I guess in a way. But at the same time I don't think anyone that typically doesn't care about peeing against the door of a restaurant is not going to be desuaded to do so with a pissoir nearby. Which is why, I think, the only solution is getting medieval on them. And if they are students, then they will recognize the educational weight of a valuable lesson.
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