No mercy for Montreal litterbugs

People who carelessly flick away a cigarette butt or spit out a piece of chewing gumin downtown Montreal could be in for an expensive surprise.

As part of acontinuing fight to clean up the downtown core, bylaw inspectors in the borough of Ville Marieare training their sights on people who foul downtown sidewalks.

With fines of up to $125 for a first offence, the bylaw hasbite.

The borough hashanded out more than $1 million in fines to people and businesses that littered in violation of the cleanlinessrulessincethey went into effect last year. Benit Labont, the borough's mayor,said it's clear the crackdown is working, though there is still much to do.

Labont said there will be enforcement blitzes by police, and to make sure the word gets out that the targets include cigarette butts and chewing gum, the borough has takenits campaign to the internet, witha video on YouTube and a group on Facebook, the popular social networking site.

But Labont said that while the borough will strictly enforce the bylaw, the goal is not to swell its coffers with more fines.

"Our objective at the end of the process two, three, four years from now is to give less and less tickets because behaviours regarding cleanliness will be much better," Labont said. "So our goal is not to increase the number of tickets or fines, it's to decrease it."

Labont said the money collected from fines goes into a special cleanliness fund, not into the borough's general coffers.

He says there will be 13 inspectors on the streets again this year, along with a special clean-up crew to make sure Montreal's downtown core remains attractive to people who live and visit the city.

About 60 per cent of the tickets handed out last year went to businesses, with individuals accounting for the remainder.