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“We had a bunch of good people trying their best to make good decisions for this community,” said Abela, who is operational commander of the Taber police force.

“The way the public has reacted in our community has been very positive. But external to this community — the way that others have laughed and joked and made fun of this community –it’s absolutely inappropriate and it’s unwarranted and that’s what I’m mad at.”

He said many of the aspects criticized in the bylaw were already in the books or borrowed from other communities.

Photo by Jen Gerson / National Post

He noted transit police in Calgary give out seven tickets a month for spitting with no backlash at all. And he said the rules allow officers to give tickets instead of going one level higher and clogging the town’s courts with criminal charges.

“What was the catalyst that caused all this sensational nonsense?” he asked. “The first is the misdirected, self-interested, driven and misinformed so-called legal experts. The second is opinion-based, non-researched sensationalized reporting.”

Abela received a positive response from the audience. Linda Christensen, who grew up in Taber, said she likes the bylaw and resents the public ridicule heaped on the town, which is best known as being the corn capital of Canada.

“I think it was all blown out of proportion,” Christensen said with a laugh. “I thought people were crazy. These laws are in place in most small communities.”

Taber, located 50 kilometres east of Lethbridge, is a largely agricultural town. The tree-lined streets are wide and the houses well-kept.

Mayor Henk De Vlieger is disappointed with the misinformation that has come out about his community.

“I think a lot of people like to see sensation these days and I think that is the big part of the problem,” he said.

“I think everybody knows where Taber is — that’s a good thing. So we’ll dwell on that and we’ll tell the whole world what a good place it is to live, work, retire and play.”