Jamie Sarkonak: Provinces should hit gangs where it hurts — by going after window tint

Photo by Sun Media

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The fully tinted-out vehicle is one of the great villains of Canadian traffic. It’s more likely to drive aggressively, ripping through residential zones and weaving through high-density freeway traffic far above the speed limit. Even worse than its road etiquette is what’s inside: people, possibly wanted on warrants, along with their drugs and guns.

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That’s why the opaque-windowed car is the perfect target for any province that wants to make substantive change in the fight against organized crime — without depending on the feds.

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Window tint is a simple matter of traffic regulation, placing it squarely within provincial jurisdiction. And it’s regulated for good reason: completely darkened windows on the entire car reduce driver visibility and the tint can complicate extraction in an emergency. They also make the job of traffic enforcement much more dangerous for the officers on the front line. It’s a lot easier for the occupants of that tinted-out hellcat to ambush the sheriff who pulled them over if he can’t see inside on the approach.

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Generally, the present rules on window tint across the provinces allow for some degree of tint in the back of a vehicle, and no tint at all in the front. But, generally, the consequences across Canada for violating these very straightforward rules are astoundingly low. In B.C., for example, the illegal tint fine is usually $109, according to the RCMP. If the officer also makes an inspection order to ensure the tint is removed, and said order is not followed, there can be another fine of $598.

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Alberta is much the same: earlier this week a tinted-out Ford Mustang whose driver had been speeding on a learner’s licence — go figure — was hit with a $105 fine for the state of the car’s windows. The minimum is $81, and failure to remove the tint after being ordered to do so comes with a $243 fine. Ontario’s rates are similar: the fine is $85, which comes to $110 after tacking on the victim surcharge.

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It’s pretty clear why cars with all-black windows remain a common enough sight in city traffic. The fines amount to a low cost-of-doing-business charge. The benefits of heavy tint, concealing seedy business and protecting against targeted attacks from rivals, are easily worth that price.

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Enforcement, meanwhile, is not happening to the degree it should be. The visible violation of a traffic rule in the form of tint does provide officers an easy justification for pulling over a probable criminal and potentially taking an illegal gun or two off the street — but at great risk. A proper, safety-conscious traffic stop of a fully tinted car is a bigger production than normal because of all the precautions that must be taken, which takes more effort and time. Judging by how frequently front window tint can be observed on the road, the juice doesn’t appear to be worth the squeeze for a lot of officers.

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The good news? That calculation is easy to change. Traffic fines can be cranked up with the stroke of a pen at a moment’s notice — to $3,000, $5,000 or even, for subsequent violations, $10,000 and beyond. Seize the vehicles of those who insist on eating the massive fines.