St. Patrick’s Day brought plenty of visitors and fun to the island with activities on Friday and Saturday along with all sorts of Irish meal specials at the Shamrock, Dalwhinnies and the Bodega. But, it also brought what some are now calling a heavy handed approach to traffic enforcement to the island with people pulled over and questioned in circumstances that some say are out of line with appropriate conduct by the Sherrif’s office. After a firestorm on social media over the weekend, including initiation of a Change dot org petition by former Charlevoix County Prosecutor Mary Beth Kur.
St. James Township has scheduled a public forum to discuss the issue for Tuesday. That will be at the BIC Center starting at 4:00.
Kur’s Change dot org petition says that despite the fact that there are no traffic lights on the island and that there has never been an alcohol related traffic death here, in a period of 2 days, dozens and dozens of drivers (who were not intoxicated at all) were stopped, detained, questioned and some were actually ordered out of their cars for questioning. The petition is available at: https://www.change.org/p/petition-to-address-beaver-island-community-policing-actions
An earlier version of this story was first published at wvbi.net.
