Boulevard-mowing battle heats up again as Winnipeg man summoned back into court
Richard Hykawy considers boulevard-cutting requirement 'slavery'
A Winnipeg man who's been fighting a turf war with city hall over a rule that homeowners must mow their boulevards is again being hauled back into court for failing to cut his.
Richard Hykawy is accused of violating the Neighbourhood Livability Bylaw for not cutting a stretch of grass to the east of his home on Henry Dormer Drive in Island Lakes.
The boulevard in question is located on a different street — Island Shore Boulevard — and a fence completely separates his property from it.
There are rocks, not grass, at the front of his home.
But under the bylaw, owners and occupants of residential properties are obliged to maintain adjacent boulevards even though the land belongs to the city.
And it's because of that Hykawy believes the city is simply imposing a form of forced labour on its citizens.
"We're not being paid any money. Forced labour, or slavery, is anyone who's being forced to work for little or no money. And in this case we are being forced to work on property that is not ours, it does not belong to us, therefore as a result it's forced labour, or slavery," he told CBC News.
On July 20, Hykawy was issued a summons to appear in court in September.
Case was before Manitoba trial court in 2013
In 2013 he took his case to Manitoba's Court of Queen's Bench on the basis the city's bylaw was unconstitutional and breached his fundamental freedoms. Court records show the case was adjourned indefinitely in September 2013.
In the interim, Hykawy says the city has come and done the boulevard work, charged him for it on his property tax bill and he pays up. He said since moving into the home in 2006 he's never once mowed the strip of lawn and he's not going to start now.
"As part of the agreement for moving into our home, the city had a list of what we were responsible for, and we've kept our end of that responsibility for drainage, sewage and everything else," he said. "The boulevard was never discussed and it was never part of the agreement for purchasing this house."
He described the law compelling him to do the work as "crazy."
"Sometimes you've gotta take a stand for what's right. If you don't, you allow the bullies of the world to win," he said. "At one time everyone believed that the earth was flat. And to think that it was round, you could be burned at the stake or killed. That was a law, and it was enforced, and it was crazy."
Cutting boulevard a duty: neighbour
One of Hykawy's neighbours, Gary Siemens, said he sometimes used to cut the untended boulevard himself but "finally just gave up."
He disagrees with Hykawy's views.
"Well, I end up cutting my boulevards, and I don't believe it's slave labour. it's just part of the neighbourhood, it's part of our duty," he said.
The city doesn't track infractions handed out specifically for failing to cut boulevards.
But statistics provided to CBC show a declining trend in the number of "failure to cut vegetation" tickets over the past few years.
In 2014, 16 tickets were handed out for the offence, dropping to nine and seven the following years.
So far from Jan.1 to July 21, 2017, three tickets have been written up.
"Most people who cut their lawns also cut the boulevard; only occasionally do we come across property owners who do cut grass on their property, but leave the boulevard uncut," city spokesperson Kailey Barron wrote in an email.