Council to beef up fines in response to catalytic converter thefts in Calgary – Calgary | 24CA News

Calgary metropolis councillors voted unanimously Tuesday to spice up fines and discover different choices to curb catalytic converter thefts throughout the town.

The movement from Ward 14 Coun. Peter Demong, and co-signed by a number of different councillors, asks metropolis administration to make use of the town’s business licence bylaw to manage the possession of an unattached catalytic converter.

Demong mentioned the movement contains establishing heftier fines to behave as a deterrent.

“The fine needs to go up to at least $1,000-plus in order to encourage an actual courtroom appearance, as opposed to just paying the fine in an envelope and walking away.”

According to information from the Calgary Police Service, there have been 3,174 reported catalytic converter thefts between January and November final 12 months. That’s up from 1,560 thefts in 2021, whereas there have been solely 300 reported in 2020 and 205 in 2019.

The enhance can be being attributed to the rising worth of valuable metals that catalytic converters are made out of: platinum, palladium and rhodium.

The City of Calgary mentioned changing a catalytic converter can price between $1,300 and $3,400.

“The whole purpose of this is to come up with some solutions,” Demong mentioned.

Demong’s movement was impressed by a transfer from the City of Leduc, which modified its bylaw to advantageous anyone in possession of unattached catalytic converters aside from these with a legitimate business licence for automotive restore or auto components provide, or those that have a allow from the City of Leduc.

According to Leduc RCMP, this system additionally features a partnership with native companies to engrave a automobile’s VIN quantity on the bottom of a catalytic converter to assist make it simpler to establish if it’s stolen.

Although no stolen converters with the etched VIN numbers have been recovered, the native RCMP detachment mentioned this system is a useful deterrent.

“People are aware of this and they know now we can identify the owner of that catalytic converter based on the VIN being etched on it, with the ability to follow up with some sort of a criminal code investigation,” Leduc RCMP Cst. Cheri-Lee Smith instructed Global News. “We want to keep those catalytic converters on the vehicles in our communities and out of the hands of criminals.”

The Calgary Police Service not too long ago introduced a partnership with Kal Tire with an identical concept; automobile house owners can get their catalytic converters engraved with their VIN quantity as a part of the pilot undertaking by way of to the tip of March.

“In Alberta, the law states that if you want to recycle a catalytic converter, you have to provide proof of ownership,” Kal Tire mechanical program supervisor Tim Orpen mentioned. “If the VIN number engraved doesn’t match that proof of ownership, they can’t actually bring it to a recycler.”

According to Demong, the plan being developed by metropolis administration will work in tandem with that partnership.

Although Demong’s movement obtained unanimous approval from metropolis council, there have been some considerations raised over the town’s potential to implement any new guidelines.

Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp famous new bylaws and rule modifications round single-use gadgets, pet possession and road harassment.

“I think as a council we have to ask ourselves if we honestly can enforce these things that we’re putting forward,” Sharp instructed council. “How many more of these can we bring forward without increasing enforcement resources?”

City administration is predicted to come back again to council with suggestions on the difficulty in June.

Demong mentioned metropolis administration will even search for different methods in an effort to curb the spike in thefts.

“If somebody else has any ideas with regards to how we can fix this, call my office, I’m open,” Demong mentioned.

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