Cops & Queers

Despite a number of recent dust-ups, Olivia Chow maintains that relations between police and queers have improved in recent years.

“These kinds of things set us back a little bit, and we just have to work hard and move forward.”

But there are still a number of other morality plays to deal with.

Even though the city has given its stamp of approval to naked sun worshippers at Hanlon’s Point Beach, it didn’t take police long to find another loophole.

Within days, nude swimmers were told to keep their booties out of the water and on the sand. An obscure Harbour Commission law was cited.

“Oh brother,” says Chow. “That was a complete waste of time. That was a total waste of time. The law doesn’t even exist, because the institution that had the law does not exist.

“Are they trying to justify their salaries or something?”

There’s always the matter of park arrests, too, and Chow says it ought to stop.

“The community shouldn’t be expected to live with something like that,” she says. “However, with an institution like that maybe the learning takes longer than it should. We’ll just have to do better with the training, and when they do something that is offensive, we need to speak up immediately, and very strongly.”