When a man flicked a cigarette butt onto a grassy median on Friday while parked next to Victoria Police Chief Del Manak in front of the Crystal Pool, a few blocks from the police station, Manak didn’t hesitate.
He got out of his unmarked police car, stamped the cigarette out, then presented the man with a $575 ticket under the Wildfire Act.
The driver was prepared with a few excuses: The car had no ashtray, he sees people do it all the time, he was going to get out and extinguish it once he got off the phone.
None worked, however, so he asked to speak to a supervisor. The officer who happened to be there with Manak set the butt-flicker straight. “Sir, he’s the chief.”
End of conversation.
“It was a bit of an awkward moment, but kind of a humorous moment, too,” Manak said Monday, adding there was no way he was letting the man off the hook.
“He was just so careless and so casual about it,” Manak said.
“You would think people ought to know better, especially given the tinder-dry conditions that we’re seeing in British Columbia. We’re seeing all the wildfires.”
Tossing a still-burning cigarette these days when conditions are so dry “is potentially putting lives at risk,” he said. “It’s selfish behaviour.”
It’s the third time in recent years Manak has ticketed a driver for tossing a smouldering cigarette out of a vehicle during hot, dry weather.
In a September 2018 incident, which occurred while Manak was stopped at a red light on Blanshard Street, the driver took off “pedal to the metal” when the light turned green.
He caught a break from the chief, though, receiving an $81 ticket for littering and a $138 ticket for speeding — instead of being dinged for $575.
In a similar incident the following June on the Patricia Bay Highway near Quadra Street, the driver was presented with a $575 ticket.
“575 reasons to not throw your lit cigarette out the window in front of @vicpdcanada,” Manak wrote in a Twitter message.
The driver told Manak he tossed the butt because he didn’t want his car to burn, so Manak suggested he refrain from smoking while he drives.
Saanich police issued their first $575 butt-flicking ticket this year to a motorist at the Trans-Canada Highway and McKenzie Avenue a few weeks ago, not long after a provincial state of emergency was declared due to B.C.’s serious wildfire situation.
The cigarette landed on a median where fires have broken out in the past.
jbell@timescolonist.
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