Your favourite local news stories.
Was the gorilla a pedestrian?
It's a question that rarely, if ever, has been debated in a Canadian courtroom -- is an ape on in-line skates
legally "a pedestrian"?
It could be crucial to the defence of a teenager charged with disturbing traffic after he skated down a
Regina street last year while dressed as a gorilla.
On March 22, 2003, 16-year-old Trendon Zimmer was ticketed under a section of Saskatchewan's Highway
Traffic Act after a Regina police officer found him skating down Arcola Avenue.
At the time, Zimmer was promoting Hillybilly Vac Shack, a local vacuum cleaner store at 340 Victoria Ave.
which has for many years used gorilla mascots for advertising purposes.
With the backing of store owner Joe Dupuis, Zimmer is pleading not guilty.
The trial before Traffic Justice William McLeod began Tuesday.
Under questioning from prosecutor Terry Vincent, Regina police Const. Andrew Puglia said he was driving
down Arcola at around 3 p.m. when he noticed several cars were making sudden lane changes and traffic
was becoming congested.
"I was wondering why this was taking place," Puglia said. "It was at that time I observed a person in a gorilla
costume Rollerblading in the right driving lane."
Puglia said he stopped his car near the gorilla, which skated away then came back and collided with the
vehicle.
"He gathered himself, made a gesture before me and continued."
Puglia charged Zimmer with stunting -- performing an activity likely to distract or startle users of a highway.
"I felt the practice he was engaged in was dangerous," Puglia said.
But defence lawyer Dave Halvorsen argued that section of the law only applies to drivers, passengers and
pedestrians.
The province has broadened the definition of a pedestrian to include somebody who uses a wheelchair, but
not to cyclists or in-line skaters, he said.
"It doesn't include a Rollerblader," he said. "A pedestrian is one who walks."
Halvorsen asked McLeod to throw out the charges based on that argument.
Vincent argued that the term "pedestrian" includes people on bicycles and in-line skates.
McLeod adjourned the case to Jan. 23 to study the issue further.
The case of the in-line skating gorilla was one of a number of disputes Hillybilly Vac Shack had with the
authorities in 2003.
Dupuis was ticketed over the store's flashing lights, but the charge was later dropped. The city also notified
him last year that he had to move his life-sized gorilla sign because it was too close to the sidewalk.
― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)
two weeks pass...