Two thousand more tickets and a $50,000-increase in revenues.

That's how the numbers stacked up in Coquitlam over stats from one year earlier, as council was briefed Monday on 2011's bylaw, business licensing and animal services numbers.

A staff report accompanying the presentation notes that 7,918 bylaw enforcement notices were issued last year, compared to 5,587 handed out in 2010. The revenue generated from those infractions totalled $221,235, up from $170,315 in 2010.

The city saw a sharp drop last year in controlled substance bylaw violations - marijuana grow ops, for example - as the numbers fell to 79 from 196. However, there was a drastic jump in the number of street and traffic bylaw tickets issued - to 6,840 in 2011 from 4,499 in 2010 - which accounted for a large part of the revenue increase.

Of the 7,918 tickets issued in 2011, 6,840 of them pertained to street and traffic violations.

"With parking, you're going to get a ticket," said Andrea McDonald, Coquitlam's manager of bylaw, licensing and animal services, in an interview Tuesday. "Whereas with other bylaws, we really do try to come from a compliance perspective so that there's discussions prior to ticketing."

Most traffic tickets were for stopping where prohibited or parking where prohibited, McDonald said. The rest typically involved commercial vehicle infractions, illegal use of a street or impeding traffic.

After the street and traffic bylaw infractions, animal protection bylaw tickets ranked a distant second at 464. Fire prevention bylaw (99) and postering bylaw infractions (95) ranked third and fourth respectively.

McDonald's report notes that street and traffic issues also accounted for the highest volume of bylaw complaints to the city - 1,112 complaints, or 50.6 per cent. Untidy/unsightly premises complaints came in second (399), while issues around illegal suites ranked third, with 153 complaints.

As for animal shelter statistics, 609 animals were received by the shelter in 2011: 305 dogs, 267 cats, 20 birds and 10 rabbits. Eightyfour per cent of all dogs were reclaimed by their owners, while 18 per cent of cats were reclaimed.

In years past, the city has seen only about 12 per cent of cats reclaimed by their owners.

"It seems like a small amount, but it's progress in the right direction," McDonald said. "We're hoping that those numbers are going to go up this year as well. I'd really like to highlight our cat registration program to get more cats registered, because that is how they will be reunited with their owners."

The program involves registering cats that have a form of permanent identification (tattoo or microchip) with the Coquitlam Animal Shelter.

The cats are eligible for free registration if their owners live in Coquitlam or Port Moody.

If a registered cat goes missing and is brought to the shelter, staff will be able to match the pet quickly with its owner.

Details are available by calling the shelter at 604-927-7386.

Meanwhile, the city also experienced a modest three-per-cent growth in the number of business licences issued in 2011. The numbers jumped to 5,649 from 5,488 handed out in 2010.

Those licences pulled in more than $1.45 million, plus approximately $37,000 in late fees, compared to more than $1.42 million for regular fees plus about $25,000 in late fees in 2010.

Looking ahead to the rest of 2012, McDonald flagged a few programs that will receive additional focus this year. She noted that bylaw staff are going to increase their presence in the city's off-leash dog parks in the spring and summer months, on top of a push to have more staff monitoring construction in the city's northeast area.

"We're trying to have more of a focus up there just to kind of keep control of those things," she said.

"We want to have more of a presence up there, so we're not waiting for complaints. We're trying to be proactive, educating all the time and trying to ensure that we can deal with the issues as they arise."

jkurucz@thenownews.com

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