Kimberley's Bylaw Enforcement Officer Sean Lever presented the 2025 First Quarter Animal Control and Bylaw Enforcement Report to Kimberley City Council, highlighting some of their key priorities.
The first pertains to short-term rental bylaw enforcement.
"The key takeaway for that one is that we’ve been consolidating with the provincial database that has just gone through earlier last year to confirm that our numbers and theirs match," Lever said. "That’s certainly been very helpful in terms of identifying whether there are non-compliant short-term rentals in our city. We’ve actually used the take-down portal through that process to remove one listing and then we’ve also sent them additional letters through from our own software, but also the provincial software to help bring people into compliance."
The second highlight he mentioned is pet licensing. In Kimberley, pet licenses expire on December 31 each year. Lever said January is typically the busiest period for renewals, and they send reminders in late January, into early February. They've also been posting reminders to social media, with the next step being following up on delinquent licenses and issuing fines.
"We've done enough education in that piece now with the multiple letters and the social media that at this point, if you’re unlicensed, your next step will be a fine and I’m expecting that that will be a fairly significant amount of people, just based on the fact that we’ve only got 675 licensed currently," he said. "I believe the highest that we had was at the end of 2023 was approximately 830 or something to that effect. So there are a few delinquent licenses that haven’t been followed up on at this time."
Mayor Don McCormick remarked with a laugh that he'd be shocked if Kimberley had less than 3,000 dogs.
Calls for service for streets and traffic bylaw infractions remained relatively consistent this quarter at 104, compared to 96 in the first quarter of 2024 and 111 in 2023, but animal control calls are down significantly, from 43 in 2023 to 21 in the first quarter of 2025.
Good Neighbour calls, however, are up. Mayor Don McCormick asked Lever to describe what the Good Neighbour bylaw encompasses.
Lever explained that it's a "fairly extensive" category, covering things like unsightly premises, noise bylaw, idling, air pollution, solid waste, fighting and swearing in public.
"Those kind of things that we were working very closely with the RCMP on a couple of files," Lever said. "We’ve built up a good relationship there where they’re now in a position and they’re feeling comfortable with issuing municipal infraction tickets for Good Neighbour bylaw for infractions that occur while I’m off duty.
"And then I represent those tickets in court if they go that far, which helps reduce the burden on having them having to leave the city to go to court, because I go down there anyway. So I take on that portion of it and that helps drive turnover."
