New revisions to the city’s Municipal Alcohol Policy recommended by city staff were shot down by Hamilton Councillors after their changes went so far as to ban tailgating and restrict alcohol use on all city property.
The changes included restricting alcohol advertising, banning alcohol from parks and all city property without a permit, and banning municipal service centres including Hamilton City Hall from serving alcohol at events.
It was the tailgating ban that drew the most criticism from Council.
Tailgating events are often held in parking lots in association with Hamilton Tiger-Cat football games and involve permitting fans to consume alcohol in advance of each match.
The new Municipal Alcohol Policy proposed by city staff states that tailgating events raise “concerns for public health and safety.”
In the end, 13 councillors voted against the changes, while only one councillor, Maureen Wilson (Ward 1 – Chedoke-Cootes-Westdale), voted in favour of them. Mayor Andrea Horwath and Councillor Esther Pauls (Ward 7 – Central Mountain) were absent from the meeting.
City Councillor Matt Francis (Ward 5 – East Hamilton-Stoney Creek) was one of multiple councillors to speak out against the recommendations.
Francis, who wore a Hamilton Tiger-Cats jersey to the council meeting, questioned, “So the city turns a blind eye to using hard drugs in parks, leaving needles where kids play, people passed out on the street, but now suddenly the big priority is stopping people from cracking a beer in the parking lot at a Ti-Cat game?”
Francis also questioned why the report was even created by city staff, calling it “pointless” and an example of “unnecessary bureaucracy.”
“It’s a waste of staff time and taxpayer money spending hours on something that affects just nine games a year. It shows our priorities are way off track,” he continued.
The staff report says that the Municipal Alcohol Policy was last updated in 2011 and that a review was initiated in 2019 by the city’s Board of Health.
The report says that the policy changes were influenced by a 2023 report from the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction that they say shows “new evidence of the harms associated with alcohol use.”
City data on alcohol-related deaths and recent provincial legislation that has increased alcohol availability also reportedly informed staff’s recommendations.
Councillor Tom Jackson (Ward 6 – East Mountain) told Council that while the initial concept was for staff to review the existing policy, reports put to Council often “morph into something far greater [than a review] with restrictions and encompassing so much that’s well beyond, in my humble opinion, what the original intention was.”
He added that the city’s stormwater fee, dubbed a rain tax, and the new Vacant Unit Tax are key examples.
It should be noted that the report had already passed approval by the city’s Public Health Sub-Committee, which includes six councillors and six citizen members.
At least one Councillor said that they were not fully aware of what the new policy was proposing when they originally supported it at the Sub-Committee.
In the end, with City Council rejecting the recommendations, the 2011 Municipal Alcohol Policy remains in place and tailgating is permitted to continue.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
