[i]City wrestling with bylaw request
Committee asked to create a commission to govern prize fights at Crystal Centre
By KEVIN CRUSH
Herald-Tribune staff
What sports are allowed in the city is at the centre of a new debate over holding prize fights in Grande Prairie.
Jane Cada-Sharp, Crystal Centre general manager, has been looking to the city to draft a boxing, wrestling and combative sports bylaw that would essentially create a commission to allow a variety of prize fights in Grande Prairie.
Under the Criminal Code, prize fights like professional boxing or muay Thai are illegal unless a municipal commission is present to oversee the bouts. Amateur sports are exempt as they fall under federal or provincial associations.
But Mayor Wayne Ayling fears it could open the door to events the community doesn’t want held here.
“I can’t see asking any member of this community to sit in judgment on a number of sports whose ultimate focus is beating senseless your opponent,” said Ayling.
Most municipalities don’t want events like King of the Cage, which promotes itself as a mixed martial arts competition, in their communities otherwise more commissions would have been set up, said Ayling.
“They’re not enormously popular in very many cities because Alberta only has four other boxing and ultimate violence sport commissions. This isn’t like the no-smoking bylaw where everybody wants a no-smoking bylaw. This is a very narrowly-focused form of violence that is illegal in Canada subject to the creation of a commission that would somehow endorse it.”
During Tuesday’s community development committee, Ald. Bill Given said there just wasn’t enough information there for aldermen to punch forward with a bylaw, but he said it’s an idea worth looking at.
“I think it’s something that with a growing community that is looking to expand the range of entertainment options that are available in the community is worthwhile.”
The Crystal Centre has had to turn down certain events because they would have violated the Criminal Code, said Cada-Sharp. The most recent was the King of the Cage series, which has a Feb. 11 event in Prince George.
With the huge successes of other events at the Crystal Centre, such as the WWE or ICE Speedway, Cada-Sharp said other promoters have been knocking on Grande Prairie’s door and more are certain to come calling. Having a commission in place allows the city to be ready to say yes or no to any event.
“This is out there so we can be ready because we know there will be requests from these type of event promoters from the higher end to the lower end. We’re interested in only dealing with the ones that the community is interested in.”
Willie de Wit, she added, used to have bouts in Grande Prairie but were only legal because the Edmonton commission looked after it.
Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge and Slave Lake are the only municipalities in Alberta with sporting commissions. Prince George, B.C., also has a commission set up.
There are issues over sports like boxing and wrestling, which are Olympic events, or muay thai, a martial arts discipline with its roots in Thailand, which are all violent sports and so any professional events could not come to Grande Prairie.
Not allowing generally recognized sports into the city has to be considered, said Given.
“We heard that at the committee meeting that amateur events don’t fall under this, but if there are professional events that want to have an event in Grande Prairie at this point we couldn’t. That’s something we need to recognize and need to see if there is a willingness in the community to have that happen.”
There were suggestions at the committee meeting that any bylaw forming a commission could be crafted to allow the commission to be able to say no to any events thought to be contrary to the community’s tolerance.
People are already asking for these types of events in the city, said Cada-Sharp.
“We’ve had calls from people asking how come it’s in communities like Lethbridge or Edmonton or Calgary and it’s not coming to Grande Prairie. We run into that quite frequently with all kinds of events,” she said.
“Your box office dictates your success, your market dictates your success and the viability of these events. We’re not going to keep bringing events back that the public isn’t interested in, they let us know.”
Cada-Sharp will come back at a later community development meeting with more information on what types of events are being missed out on in Grande Prairie and what the make up of a commission could look like before the committee will decide on whether or not to begin drafting a bylaw.[/i]
http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/Z08_00acity0201.lasso
A fairly long but interesting article that helps chronicle the spread of combat sports throughout America. As we see, there is still many negatives views towards some combat sports.