Police ticket Occupy Regina park-dwellers

Police handed out tickets to Occupy Regina tenters Monday nightand arrested one man who was intoxicated.

According to the Regina police, tickets were issued to seven people in Victoria Park.

The five men and two women have been charged with violating the Regina Parks and Open Space Bylaw, which bans people from remaining in parks between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Six were free to go, but the seventh, a 46-year-old man whom police said was intoxicated, was taken into custody charged with breaching a previous court order.

Protesters have been living in tents in the downtown park since Oct. 15 as part of the global Occupy movement that's protesting economic injustice and income disparity.

One of the Occupy Regina group, Billy Patterson, said some people have nowhere else to go.

"The city has said that we're free to go home at night and come back in the morning," Patterson said.

"But I think the city is also saying that if people freeze to death behind parkades, or under bridges, that they don't really care about it."

The protesters also received a warning from SaskPower's gas inspectors. The utility says they need to quit using propane heaters, or they will get another fine.

The tenters also said the power was shut off in the park several weeks ago.

Meanwhile, the Saskatoon Occupy site at Gabriel Dumont Park was shut down Monday afternoon.

The city notedthat winter weather is here, andfor health and safety reasons, it had no choice but to evict the tenters.