Lawless ruffians: or, "participating in an activity without a permit"

 Well, we got kicked out of the park for sparring today. 

The SLA crew often get together on the weekend at Strathcona Park, where there's a big concrete circle that used to have some kind of pavilion on it. It makes a good spot to meet up and do some sparring. Badger sets up a camera, and we hang out, and take turns messing around in the circle. 

We'd been there about an hour today when all of a sudden a pair of guys in black uniforms showed up and told us to stop. They said we weren't allowed to be there. Admittedly, we were kind of baffled: this group have been meeting up there for literally years and never had an issue. Badger said as much. "We've had cops come by before and they've never had a problem with it."

"I'm not a cop, I'm bylaw, okay?" the guy said. "And you're participating in an unauthorized activity, so you're going to have to stop, and if we see you here again without a permit you will be charged."

No, you can't argue with a man in an official uniform who has decided how this is going to go. We did try to get some clarification: what bylaw exactly were we breaking? "Unauthorized activity," he said, "you can look it up for yourselves." We tried to look it up right there on our phones. Nothing available on the city website seemed to cover what we were doing: there were rules about interfering with other park users, but we weren't doing that; there were rules against "organized team sports," but as one of us pointed out, what we were doing was kind of the opposite of a team sport. "What counts as an 'activity'?" we asked. "Yoga? A picnic? Some friends throwing a football? Where's the line?"

The officer, of course, just doubled down. What was he going to do, say "oh, you're right, the bylaws don't cover what you're doing"? So we packed up. One of us, Phil, did follow him, filming, to ask again, "Are we not allowed to practice martial arts in the park?" 

The officer said we weren't allowed to do organized sports. "This is just a group of friends," Phil said. "Well, you can't do it," the officer said. "And you're hitting each other with sticks." 

(It sounds, in the video, like that part really made him kind of angry. I don't know why but there was emotion in his voice.)

"But it's consensual," Phil said. 

"No, it's not," said the officer (nonsensically). Then he reiterated that it "wasn't acceptable behaviour in the park," and that was pretty much it. Of course. 

As far as I can tell, there isn't a liability issue: if a group of people go to a park to play Frisbee and someone slips and breaks an ankle the city's not liable. If a group of people go to a park to spar, and someone slips and breaks an ankle, or takes a shillelagh to the shins, the city's still not liable. And this officer never even raised that. All he really said was that it wasn't "acceptable behaviour," and that it was "organized sports."

So where does the line land? When I used to meet up in a pocket park with my friend Alan to do stickfighting drills, practice breakfalls, and do some jujitsu, that wasn't organized sports. When my friend Robyn and I brought focus mitts out to the PSAC picket lines and started practicing kickboxing combinations, that wasn't organized sports.  If my kickboxing class meets up informally over the summer to practice, I bet that won't be organized sports. 

We weren't threatening anyone else, and I think it was pretty clear that we were friends playing around, not some kind of street brawl or fight club: it was noon on a Sunday, we had fencing masks on and we were laughing and ending every match with a hug. When other people come up and ask questions, we smile and tell them about it. Earlier that morning, an older woman in a sundress had come by and asked us about it, and we explained, and told her she could take all the photos she wanted. 

And okay, yes. I do see this version of the scene: a group of people (all but one of them men) in the park fighting each other with weapons. That is visually different from someone running martial arts forms or drills. (Leaving aside the fact that last year the police were called on a woman practicing tai chi alone with a practice sword in a park in Chinatown.) And there have been reports this spring about wild, unauthorized "boxing tournaments" at Britannia Beach, complete with drunk young men and general violence. And did someone else see us, get freaked out, and call it in? I don't know. I can charitably assume that that officer did a gut check and came up with "I don't like this," for whatever reason.

But still, he could have walked up and said, "Hey, can you tell me what's going on here?" instead of "Hey, you need to stop this and leave now." We would have stopped, pulled off the helmets, and explained. And okay, maybe my definition of "violence" is different from someone else's. But I still think that even before I got into martial arts, back when I thought actually doing it was scary, I'd have walked by that concrete circle and thought - "hey, cool, I wonder what they're doing? That looks interesting," rather than, "oh no! Violence!" 

But then, there is the fact that this is the City of Ottawa, the City That Fun Forgot, and, read broadly enough, the bylaw forbids "activity." 

"No person shall participate in or play baseball, softball, basketball. . . disk golf, skateboarding or any other sport or activity in a park except in an area designated by the General Manager for such respective purpose. . . " 

"Any other activity." 

Respectfully, what the fuck? 

What is a park for? 

Why do we have public, common spaces? Why even is, one might ask, Strathcona Park? What do you do with it? Walk through it going somewhere else? Sit on a park bench (there aren't many)? You can't play with your dog (dogs aren't allowed). I suppose you could lie on the grass and read a book, you could have a picnic. Your toddler could run around on the grass. But your kids can't have a sack race. And adults? Adults can't play here. Not without a permit and insurance. 

So, there are a few aspects of this in my head. 

One: at first when I talked about this online, I thought - well, if someone asks what specifically we were doing, and I say "we were sparring with sticks and staves and fake knives," then naturally they'll say, "well that sounds dangerous and transgressive so bylaw must have been right to shut it down." But honestly, the risk of injury is no greater than a particularly vigorous game of Frisbee or touch football. It's just that once it's a martial art people think differently about it. We're in a world where adults can only play within very strictly delineated spaces and if we get out of them, it's a threat. Nothing too vigorous; nothing too violent; no bruises, please, we're British.

And two: Oh my god this terrible city and its laws against people being people. Its assumption that we are not adults and capable of self-regulation. That bylaw, read literally, essentially says you need to have a permit to do anything other than sit, walk, jog, or fly a kite. 

Back when La Machine came to the city, there was a whole thing about barricades between the spectators and the machines. The City, thankfully, capitulated and allowed a flexible ribbon carried by volunteers to separate the crowds from the machines, which resulted in the most successful public spectacle we've ever had. It was intimate, it was moving, it didn't have portable steel fences corralling people onto the sidewalks. 

Also, three: if you're using a city park for something definable, something you can point at and name, like a game, a practice, a gathering, a meeting - someone, somewhere, wants you to pay money. Get a permit, get insurance, PAY someone for the right to use this public space in a particular way. YEP, it was capitalism all along. 

Who.

Woulda.

Thunk.