Anti-Hopscotch

[slacker]

Irregular News for 05.07.07

 

Ottawa, Canada -- Glebe children and their parents are furious a playful neighbourhood game of hopscotch that eventually grew to cover four city blocks was power-blasted from existence by a city of Ottawa anti-graffiti squad.

 

While the elaborate street game, chalked out by a dozen children on Third Avenue, was viewed by some neighbours as innocent fun, one resident apparently called to complain about "graffiti" on the road.

 

A maintenance truck was called in Thursday and spent an hour washing away the youngsters' efforts -- a move city officials admitted yesterday may have been a bit too hasty.

 

Willem Grant, 10, and his sister, Alise, 8, used chalk to draw the hopscotch on the sidewalk in front of their Glebe home. Others joined in, making a giant game that was later erased by the city.

 

Willem Grant, 10, and his sister, Alise, 8, used chalk to draw the hopscotch on the sidewalk in front of their Glebe home. Others joined in, making a giant game that was later erased by the city.

 

Willem Grant and his sister, Alise, said they started drawing a hopscotch in front of their home earlier that afternoon. The exercise soon snowballed, with several other neighbourhood children joining in to help create the massive game. In the end, it had 2,020 chalk squares.

 

"I just don't understand why they (the city) did this," said Willem, 10. "This was just a fun project for us and it would be cool to do this every year. We were going to film it and have a memory for everyone."

 

Alise, 8, said the city's actions were "brutal," adding she was disappointed they washed away what she and her friends had fun in creating with their chalk.

 

The children's mother, Marjolein Groenevelt, said she was "puzzled" by the city's motives and questioned why they rushed out to clean up the markings based on a single complaint. She thought the exercise was a good chance for her children and others to play outside and work on something that was creative and fun.

 

"It really was quite a special effort. It was actually a story on its own as a project before it was washed away," said Ms. Groenevelt.

 

She said there was nothing in the hopscotch that could be considered graffiti or offensive. She applauded the city's plans to rid businesses and buildings of offensive graffiti, but said the work by her children and others was not in the same category.

 

Dan O'Keefe, the city's manager of road maintenance, appeared to agree yesterday.

 

"Graffiti is a big problem in the city and, unfortunately, this got dragged into the same mix as the major problem of graffiti," he explained.

 

He said more thought should been put into the matter before sending a city crew to clean up the game, since a heavy rain would have eventually washed off the sidewalk markings.

 

He added any future complaints about removing chalk on city sidewalks will be reviewed by the department before a work crew is dispatched to clean them up.

 

Under the city's tough new anti-graffiti program, city crews and contractors will go out looking for offending work on city property and remove it, Ottawa bylaw chief Susan Jones said this week.

 

The city will spend about $1.9 million on the program this year and city council will deal with the issue next week.

 

A woman who lives on Third Avenue said she saw a city work crew washing the hopscotch markings with a power hose, but they purposely left the rest of the street and sidewalks untouched.

 

"They were there to clean the hopscotch only," said Cindy Moxness yesterday. "They were cleaning the sidewalk where the hopscotch was, then they crossed the street and cleaned my side where there was only hopscotch markings here and there."

 

Glebe resident John Leaning could not understand why the city would go to such expense and get a work crew to remove a favourite childhood schoolyard game.

 

"It's extraordinary that this hopscotch game that I used to play as a kid, and my kids played it and my kid's kids played it, all of a sudden, taxpayers money is used to remove something that is totally innocent," said Mr. Leaning.

 

source

[AR Husker Fan]

Aren't most "advanced" countries trying to encourage children to be more active?????

[hskrdedhed]

I'm shocked that there is even grafitti in Ottawa Canada. Do french-canadians join street gangs?

[rawhide]

sure they use the hand maple leaf sign and wear syrup brown colors. and the frog members surrender after they build a stationary defensive line in front of their crib.