City of Owen Sound Elects to Send Student Nurse to Trial Over Amazon Box
A student accused of tossing cardboard in a public waste can blocks from her home hoped today's appearance in court would end it. Instead the City sent the cardboard box issue to trial on Aug 31.
A Georgian College nursing student charged under Owen Sound’s Waste Management By-law will go to trial after the City’s representative told provincial offences court on Monday that the matter could not be resolved.
Sherry, whom the Owen Sound Current is identifying only by her first name, said she left the courtroom disappointed, having hoped the appearance would end the matter.
But the charge was not withdrawn.
“Disclosure is complete, we have not been able to resolve this matter,” Valerie Hawkes, appearing for the City, told the court at the 10 a.m. appearance. “We are prepared to send this matter to trial.”
Asked by the justice of the peace whether she would like to call any witnesses at trial, Sherry named the by-law enforcement officer. She was told the prosecution was already calling him. She had no one else.
Neither, on the record disclosed to her, does the City. The disclosure package the Current has reviewed lists no witness beyond that officer, contains no photographic or video evidence of how the box got to the public trash bin, and gives no indication that anyone was spoken to as part of the investigation.
The City’s case rests on the parcel’s shipping label.
Sherry said she had spent hours preparing a written response to the charge. Monday’s appearance ran to set a trial date, and offered no opportunity to present it.
The student told the Current she had arrived early and was surprised to learn there is no duty counsel to assist people in provincial offences court.
She was not able to get assistance through Legal Aid Ontario, either. Provincial offences fall outside the areas of law it is set up to fund, and outside the trigger that unlocks a certificate.
“I think it’s important for people to know, if the city summons you, you are quite literally on your own against them,” Sherry said.
She was charged in May under section 10.5.1 of the Waste Management By-law after a by-law enforcement officer found an Amazon parcel bearing her name inside a public garbage receptacle several blocks from her home.
She says she did not put it there, that it was taken from outside her home, and that no one from the City contacted her before the summons arrived.
Sherry told the Current she expected the charge to be dropped once she explained she had not put the box there; that it was a simple mistake, easily corrected. She said she contacted members of council, the mayor and the city manager. Each told her they could not do anything about the charge.
A June 11 early resolution offer from the prosecutor gave her two options: plead guilty and pay a $500 fine plus costs, or go to trial, where on conviction the prosecution would seek the $1,000 set fine plus costs.
An early resolution meeting took place by telephone June 25. In a July 13 follow-up email, the prosecution said it would reconsider if Sherry produced photo or video of the waste in question being removed.
Sherry has provided the Current two videos: a hooded figure rummaging through her recycling at the front of her property, and two people walking away from her home carrying what appear to be bags of scavenged recyclables.
Both are from early June — what she was still able to retrieve once she learned there was a charge.
She said that people rifling through the garbage and recycling bins outside her apartment building has been an ongoing issue. Her landlord recently installed a small shed to store materials until pickup day, but it has not deterred all scavenging activity. Further, the cameras are not trained directly on the waste storage.
“My landlord has already spent so much time going through the cameras,” Sherry told the Current. “The parcel was taken from the back of the house… Our back cameras face the parking lot, and the front camera faces the door.”
That means neither video shows the parcel at issue, which the officer found in May, leaving her property.
The prosecution’s condition requires footage of the specific box they found in a public waste bin being removed.
City Manager Tim Simmonds told the Current it may not matter whether Sherry put the box there herself or not.
He said the bylaw “may apply in circumstances where a person did not personally deposit the waste,” and that responsibility for the storage, placement and disposal of waste “rests with the individual who generated or controlled the waste.”
He declined to say whether a name on an item inside a public bin is enough on its own to support a charge.
The officer proceeded by Part III summons, which compels a court appearance, rather than by Part I ticket. Section 10.5.1 has an approved set fine, and at trial the prosecution seeks the same $1,000 amount a ticket would carry. Simmonds confirmed the City has no policy governing which route an officer takes.
Council enacted the by-law. A City by-law enforcement officer laid the charge. The prosecution is run by SV Paralegal Professional Corporation, a firm the City pays hourly with no formal agreement and no competitive procurement. Both Simmonds and Mayor Ian Boddy have said the matter rests with the prosecutor.
The trial is now set for August 31, where Sherry intends to represent herself. She will have the opportunity to cross-examine the by-law enforcement officer who laid the charge.
“I’m just so glad school is over by then,” she said after learning she’ll need to appear in court again, noting that she had to miss class to attend the approximately two-minute hearing on Monday.
Sherry also expressed frustration that it seems everyone else involved in the charge and proceedings was being paid for their time while the paperwork and court appearances have become a burden on top of her course load.
“I am so upset,” she said just after court, adding, “This is ridiculous.”
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