Toronto City Fines 86-Year-Old Man $350 For Pulling Weeds
And he's not planning on paying it.
Toronto has been known to hand out excessive fines for some pretty weird things, but this just takes it to a whole new level. According to a report from The Star, 86-year-old Charles Nemeth has been slapped with a $350 fine from the city of Toronto for pulling out the weeds at his local park - something most people would consider a good deed.
Nemeth, who moved to Canada from Hungary in 1956, is now retired from the restaurant business and took a liking to gardening in Eglinton Flats Park near the bocce courts. Last year he would garden at the park for four hours a day, planting everything from spearmint, to lilies, to camomile and berries. As part of tending to the garden, Nemeth would regularly remove the weeds to stop them from choking out the other plants. That is, until last July when he was issued a ticket for weeding in the park without a permit.
Since Charles has refused to pay the $350 fine, because, let's be real, it's ridiculous, it has now grown to whopping $444. $444 for pulling thistle weeds out at a park to stop them from taking over and killing off the other trees and plants? That's just plain exploitive. Here's hoping that the city of Toronto realizes how insane this is and drops Charles' fine.