On a short leash: Woman fined for taking man ‘walkies’ after curfew

Canadian police have fined the woman, whose dogged determination to dodge a strict new curfew saw her taking a man for a walk — on a leash.

Quebec province has imposed an 20:00 curfew in a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus, but residents are allowed to take dogs for walks close to home.

Police in Sherbrooke, about 150km east of Montreal, stopped a woman who was walking with a man on a leash on Saturday 9 January. When they confronted her, she replied with a straight face that she was walking her dog.

Woman gets stiff fine for breaking curfew

Sherbrooke police spokesperson Isabelle Gendron said police believed the woman was “testing us”.

She was fined Can$1,500 (just under R18,000), but refused to accept limits on her freedom, telling police she would be back out on the streets every night during the lockdown.

In the same city, a drunk motorist was stopped and fined. He “just wanted to see what it was like to be outside during the curfew”. Gendron said. 

Curfew Canada’s strictest since the Spanish flu

A curfew of this scale — province-wide from 20:00 to 05:00 for the next four weeks — has not been seen in Canada since the Spanish flu a century ago.

Across the province, 740 tickets have been issued for curfew violations so far, according to official data.

— By © Agence France-Presse

ALSO READ: UK women fined for taking a walk, told carrying tea is ‘classed as having a picnic’