It's official: April Fool's Day is a thing of the past in North Battleford.
At a hastily-called special meeting of council early this morning, council passed a bylaw officially outlawing April Fool's Day and all April Fool's jokes in the city.
The bylaw covers all jokes, pranks and other humor happening up until noon on April 1. The penalties apply not only to jokes and pranks in the workplace, at home and elsewhere, but also covers April Fool's pranks by all publications and broadcast outlets. The ban also covers all social media including Facebook and Twitter.
Peace officers in the city of North Battleford will enforce the bylaw. A fine schedule is to be imposed; first offenses start at $250, second offenses are $500 and third or more offenses are $2,000.
Also, fines are being doubled for all media organizations committing April Fools infractions.
The bylaw takes effect immediately and peace officers were expected to swarm the community in droves in a major crackdown on pranksters.
Peace officers also intend to send out a complete rundown on all alleged April Fool's activities and infractions, similar to what the RCMP does with their "Daily Report."
The crackdown on April Fool's Day came about after heavy lobbying from outraged local residents in the wake of an incident three years ago. At that time the Battlefords Regional Optimist ran a front-page April Fool's Day news story that claimed, erroneously, that the Credit Union CUplex project was being scrapped for financial reasons.
The now-infamous story was pulled and a front-page apology was issued by publisher Alana Schweitzer, but not before the phony story had provoked widespread civil unrest and chaos in the streets.
The need to ensure this situation never repeated itself ever again was cited as the rationale for the anti-April Fool's bylaw. As well, officials tout the revenue that will be raised from the fines to be imposed, which will be put to good use towards downtown revitalization and safer-communities efforts.
The bylaw was greeted with a yawn by North Battleford residents, but provoked widespread concern among residents in the town of Battleford.
The News-Optimist has been bombarded with calls from nervous Battleford residents fearful that April Fool's pranksters from north of the river will descend on their community to commit jokes on them, with no penalty attached.
There are also concerns expressed from residents of other nearby communities, including surrounding resort villages and First Nations, along the same lines.
Notably, there was not unanimous support for the anti-April Fool's Day measures on council.
One unidentified councillor reportedly walked out of the special meeting in disgust over the bylaw.
Unfortunately, the walkout meant there was no one in chambers opposing the resolution to proceed to third reading, a procedural vote that by rule requires unanimous consent.
The dissenting councillor raced back up the stairs at City Hall, but it was too late as all three readings were passed and the bylaw was signed and sealed.
After the meeting the humiliated councillor, whose head was covered by a paper bag, vented frustration.
"We're going to take a tumble in the MoneySense quality-of-life rankings over this!" the councillor said.
"Who will want to live in a community with no sense of humor? This will drive all the cool people away!"
The bag-headed councillor also claimed nobody else on council or administration wanted the bylaw either. But they had "caved" to pressure from a small but vocal minority of "mad fools" who had been angrily demanding action from City Hall on the important April Fool's joke issue.
However, there is a possibility the April Fool's bylaw could be overturned quickly.
"This is a violation of our charter rights to freedom of speech," the unknown councillor said, vowing to have the bylaw struck down in the courts.
North Battleford is not the only city in Canada cracking down on jokes. City council in Toronto is rumored to be on the verge of passing a similar bylaw cracking down on the flood of jokes made by comedians at the expense of Mayor Rob Ford.
That bylaw effort is backed by local residents who say they are embarrassed that Toronto has become a punch line for late night TV hosts. A bigger issue, however, is whether their proposed bylaw can even be enforced given that the late-night comedians are all located outside the country.
On a related topic, the Battlefords News-Optimist reminds all residents to proceed with caution in reading news stories today, as April 1 is traditionally the day when newspapers, radio and TV outlets go hog wild running completely phony April Fool's Day stories such as the one you are reading right now.
Yes, you've been punk'd. Happy April Fool's Day to you all.
