What do chickens, sharks and scantily clad female football players have in common?
Abbotsford!
This city is quite remarkable in its ability to find itself immersed in the most unusual, and often complex, social debates.
During these past few weeks, all three subjects came up on the city hall radar, although one had been there already for some time.
You know what that one is. The former Lingerie Football League, now know as Legends Football.
It’s football, all right. Political, that is.
And on Monday night, it seems council may have finally put this one in the locker.
If you haven’t been in outer space or tunnelling to Alberta, you know that there has been considerable controversy about this “sport,” which features buxom lassies running plays in sports bras and booty shorts.
Not surprisingly, some people in this community took umbrage, culminating in a call by Richard Peachy for a policy to be developed that would give city staff direction on what was offensive in terms of the use of public facilities.
I opined in this space last week that it was a futile undertaking, since trying to define offensive in a fashion we can all agree on is akin to defining “nice.”
Council ultimately agreed, rescinding its earlier directive.
Done. Bring on the Legends football...
Now to the sharks.
On the same evening, council passed fourth reading of bylaws that will ban the sale, trade and distribution of shark fins and products.
From the morality of fleshy women, to the morality of cruelly harvesting the flesh of fish.
Quite the mental leap, that. However, Peachy made the connection, even if councillors didn’t, questioning how they couldn’t decide on what was moral in terms of public buildings, but found no trouble in condemning the morally contemptible practice of cutting fins off live creatures, and dumping them back in the sea.
Personally, I have no need to cross that philosophical canyon.
I don’t care if people want to see jiggly human bits, as long as their owners are jiggling out of their own choice.
I do care that there exists such incredible disregard for creatures that they are sliced up alive, and left for a slow death, just for a bowl of soup.
Now that practice I find offensive.
So, my congratulations to council for taking a progressive stand on this. Hopefully, many more cities follow suit until the practice is eradicated.
And now, finally, chickens.
As one resident recently discovered, you can’t have them here in the “City in the Country,” unless you actually live in the country, not in the city.
Yet in Vancouver, which is far more city than country, small flocks of hens are allowed in suburban back yards.
I see the other two issues quite clearly. This one baffles me.
Can’t be noise...
If you live in the country, right next to the city, you’re allowed to blast propane cannons all day long, at the sonic level of a shotgun, to scare birds.
Chickens, on the other hand, just cluck.
They’re cooped up, so they don’t go pooping on the neighbours’ lawns ... like dogs and cats, which are allowed to do that.
Disease? Seems the avian flu crisis several years ago out here focused on commercial farms.
So, what’s so heinous about hens?
Abbotsford, sometimes you confound me.