Former Giant miner decries downtown rush hour parking ticket

Andy Dupras, a longtime Yellowknifer and senior citizen, isn't happy that he received a parking ticket along with his sushi dinner recently.

Dupras was parked out front of Sushi Cafe on Franklin Avenue shortly after 5:30 p.m. on July 31, which fell between the restricted hours of 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. on the city's main street.

His ticket reads "5:47 p.m."

After picking up his Japanese cuisine while his Chevy Cruze sat out front, Dupras said it wasn't five minutes later that he returned to find a bylaw officer writing him a ticket.

He said he doesn't intend to pay the ticket and wants to challenge it, but his money is limited to hire a lawyer because he only lives on an old-age pension.

"It's only $25, but it isn't the idea of that (the cost)," Dupras said. "It's the moral thing of the story."

He believes because Franklin Avenue is the main route through town – and, historically, the only route to get through to Giant Mine and Ingraham Trail – there should be no parking meters at all. He considers it a highway.

But city parking policy doesn't appear to agree with him.

Mayor Rebecca Alty said it's understood that highways are distinct in that they do not have parking meters, but Franklin Avenue is not understood to be a highway in the same way as highways 3 and 4.

"Highway 4 begins at the Explorer Hotel and what would have been the old Ingraham Trail, and Highway 3 starts at the junction of Highway 4 near the NTPC power plant," Alty said. "Highways don't have parking meters."

As for 50 Avenue, it's treated as a street and the city encourages people to use it to shop at businesses downtown, which is why there are parking meters.

But that encouragement has to be a balanced with the management of traffic flow, Alty said, as there's increased congestion during certain periods of the day. This has long required opening an additional lane, which negates parking.

"There has to be a control of traffic flow during rush hour times in the morning and afternoon with two lanes of traffic (on either side) in and out of town as opposed to one lane, which is what would happen if parking meters remained in effect all the time," she said.

The parking meter for two stalls at Sushi Cafe has a one-hour parking maximum. It is marked with a no-parking notice between 3 a.m.-9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.-6 p.m. during weekdays.

During those times, the city asks residents to park on side streets. If it weren't that way, the city would receive complaints, Alty said.

"You do sometimes see it that when people are parked (during rush hour), there are frustrated drivers honking their horns when it happens," she said. "It is just a reminder to take a look and make sure you aren't parked  from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. and 3 a.m. to 9 a.m."

On weekends, parking meters aren't in effect at all, so technically one could park in front of Sushi Cafe on a Saturday at 5:30 p.m. without being penalized, she added.

Seniors pass 

Dupras, 83, also has a seniors citizen pass that allows him to park without having to pay parking meters.

The city states that seniors' passes allow users to park free of charge at select parking meters downtown. These passes are only valid at one and two-hour meters. They don't allow users to park during restricted hours.

Dupras lives near Sushi Cafe, however,  travelling by foot is difficult because he broke his back about three years ago. He added that there is otherwise little to no parking in the area for the restaurant.

The city resumed collecting parking revenue at the metres as of July 2 after the service had been suspended on March 24 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, restricted hours on Franklin Avenue have always remained in place.

Sixty-five years since coming to Yk 

Dupras is a longtime Yellowknifer, having arrived in the city in 1955 after hitchhiking to Edmonton from his hometown – a Quebec village called Val-Senneville, near Val-d'Or. He was able to get a job at Giant Mine with his hitchhiking partner at the time and he's quick to joke about the rivalry between the Giant Grizzlies and Con Cougar sports teams.

"In them days if you had a baseball bat or hockey stick, they hired you right away," he said, laughing.

He worked underground at Giant for five years before leaving to work for the then-territorial Department of Public Works, mostly as a road surveyor.

Looking back, he's happy with that decision, in part because he thinks he could have been one of the victims of Roger Warren, who orchestrated an underground bomb explosion in  1992 that killed nine Giant workers.

Warren died last November at age 75 – a fact that Dupras had not known.

"I knew him, but I was not on speaking terms and he was always at the diner beside the Gold Range," he said.

"I was lucky because if I had stayed mining at Giant all those years then I would have probably been down there."

Dupras spent many years prospecting and trapping in the bush and was always close to wildlife throughout his life.

Dupras married Louisa Lafferty (then Laferté) shortly after arriving in Yellowknife and together they had five children. Louisa passed away in 2010 following a bout with cancer and after 52 years of marriage.

Dupras retired two years ago, but he had always intended to keep working. He noted that he toiled late into his life for Dr. Tom Picz at the Great Slave Animal Hospital, Don Morin at the Aurora Village and at the Yk Direct Charge Co-op deli in recent years.

"I like working and I've never been out of work, ever," he said. "My wife never worked a single day in her life but her job was to raise the kids. My job was to make the money. It's different now."

On guard while downtown

Living alone downtown since Louisa died, Dupras has seen much change around him and not always for the better. He said the condition of the downtown core isn't promising with the drugs, alcohol and homelessness he sees even on his own street. For that reason, he doesn't support tax revenue going toward people from communities who are caught in Yellowknife suffering from homelessness and addictions.

"I carry a baseball bat in my car all the time and I've used it twice already," he said, adding he keeps one by his door too.

"I live right across from (public) housing ....and I call it the snake pit. The cops and the law enforcement officers are always there. If it isn't them, then it is the fire trucks and it's every day of the frickin' week."

Dupras said he knows the victim of an attack in July that forced a man in his mid-30s to be medevaced to Edmonton. The victim had his throat cut in an alcohol-related dispute among street-people, according to Dupras.

"I don't feel safe and I don't usually go out because with those bums, it's not safe," he said.