A Toronto woman has received a $243 ticket from the City of Barrie for a dog-off-the-leash incident some 20 years ago at her cottage in the area. Thing is, the dog in question, Mitzy, did not even belong to Stacy Majchrowski. Mitzy belonged to a neighbor, the late Nick Nixon. Ms. Majchrowski remembers the day well. The bylaw officer gave her a ticket because Mitzy had strayed onto her property. She referred the man to her neighbor. Nixon also got a ticket and paid it, says Majchrowski. She thought the matter was finished. But the long arm of the dog police in Barrie now wants $243 including interest for that “offense” committed way back when Google was just a funny name for an obscure thing on the Internet. “At first I thought it was a joke,” Majchrowski told the CBC. “Well, no. No, it’s real.” And although lawyers think the circumstances of the ticket should invalidate it, they say Barrie is within the law to try to collect fines that old.
