Mississauga city council has voted to maintain the ban on residential street sports, meaning hockey and basketball on the road will remain banned.

The November 6 vote took place more than a year and a half after the Ward 2 council. Alvin Tedjo made a motion aimed at changing the regulations, noting that some residents have “weaponized” existing rules to prevent children from playing on their streets.

Mississauga has observed this ban since 1979. It was amended in 2010 to also include banning sports equipment, such as hockey and basketball nets, from the roadway.

Tedjo’s motion asked municipal staff to produce a report reviewing existing regulations, the findings of which were presented in a document. published on October 22. In it, staff recommended “deregulating” sports on city streets, meaning the activity would neither be banned nor permitted. Law enforcement officers will continue to respond to complaints about road obstructions or noise, the report said.

The report examined the rules of 12 comparable jurisdictions to inform their recommendation. These include Toronto, Ottawa and Kitchener, where sports are permitted on roads under certain conditions.

The report also looked at cities that neither ban nor allow road sports, including London, Oshawa, Vaughan and Kingston, the last of which only recently changed its bylaws to 2022 after 14 years of allowing hockey street and basketball.

Brampton, Burlington, Hamilton, Markham and Oakville currently prohibit sports on the roads.

The report also reveals that complaints about road sports in Mississauga are quite rare, accounting for less than 1 per cent of the more than 18,500 complaints received by the city last year.

Speaking to council before the Nov. 6 vote, Georgios Fthenos, Mississauga’s director of enforcement, said the city has never laid a charge related to the ban in more than 50 years. , which led Mayor Carolyn Parish to question existing regulations: “If it’s not broken, why are we fixing it?”

Additionally, parish councilors and others who voted against the recommendation to drop the ban expressed concerns that the town would be vulnerable to liability in its absence.