Mississauga city council has voted to keep its residential street sports ban in place, meaning hockey and basketball on the road will remain out of bounds.
The Nov. 6 vote came more than a year-and-a-half after Ward 2 Coun. Alvin Tedjo brought forward a motion aimed at amending the bylaws, noting that some residents have “weaponized” the existing rules to prevent kids from playing on their streets.
Mississauga has observed the ban since 1979. It was amended in 2010 to also include the prohibition of sporting equipment, like hockey and basketball nets, on the roadway.
Tedjo’s motion tasked city staff to produce a report that reviewed the existing bylaws, the findings of which were laid out in a document published Oct. 22. In it, staff recommended “deregulating” sports on the city streets, meaning the activity would be neither prohibited nor permitted. Enforcement officers would continue to respond to complaints about road obstructions or noise, the report read.
The report looked at the rules in 12 comparable jurisdictions to inform their recommendation. Those include Toronto, Ottawa, and Kitchener, where sports are permitted on roadways under certain conditions.
The report also looked at cities which neither prohibit nor permit road sports, including London, Oshawa, Vaughan, and Kingston, the last of which only recently amended their bylaw in 2022 following 14 years of allowing street hockey and basketball.
Brampton, Burlington, Hamilton, Markham, Oakville currently prohibit sports on roadways.
The report also found that complaints about road sports in Mississauga are quite rare, accounting for less than one per cent of the more than 18,500 complaints received by the city last year.
Speaking at council before the Nov. 6 vote, Georgios Fthenos, Mississauga’s director or enforcement, said the city has never laid a charge in connection with the ban in over 50 years, leading Mayor Carolyn Parish to ask of the existing bylaws: “If it’s not broken, why are we fixing it?”
As well, Parish and other councillors who voted against the recommendation to ditch the ban voiced concerns over the city being vulnerable to liability in its absence.
“I know, cause we’ve gone into it in detail, that we’re liable. It’s not so much the cost, it’s the loss of a life. So, if I could refer this back to staff and you come back with something that’s airtight, I would consider it,” Parish said before voting against it.
“I don’t want to hear about this again. I just want it to go away.”
In a statement provided to CTV News Toronto, Tedjo said he was “disappointed” by council’s decision.
“Our communities are better when kids are able to play outside and parents have confidence in their kids' safety. This decision will continue to give naysaying neighbours the ability to use our limited by-law officers to spend time keeping kids off their street,” he said.
Tedjo said he hopes that, in the future, council reconsiders the decision.