A few love padlocks on Toronto’s Humber Bridge conquered the parks department’s merciless loppers during an early morning removal operation.

A thick, heart-shaped love lock, showing signs of struggle, appeared to be too strong for park staff.

A crew of four workers, each in their own vehicles and clad in orange safety jackets, arrived at the Humber River foot bridge about 7:30 a.m., a nearby by resident said.

Loppers in hand, parks staff cut nearly all of the 40-odd padlocks from the bridge’s cables. Only three locks remained once staff were finished.

The parks department said on Thursday it was going to snip the 40-odd padlocks on the cables that span the bridge.

The justification was appearance. “Esthetically, they just don’t look good,” said city parks manager Kevin Bowser.

“That’s a really picturesque point of the city. If we’ve got all kinds of hanging, rusting locks there, it just won’t look that appealing, “ he said.

Structural problems could arise if the Humber Bridge becomes a love lock destination, he added.

Love locks are part of a global phenomenon, seen on bridges and the streets of Paris, Rome, Cologne or Moscow. Padlocks of all shapes, colours and sizes clutter bridges and fences as symbolic gestures of eternal love.

Toronto’s city officials aren’t the first to fight the trend.

In Florence, Italian officials cut more than 5,000 locks off the Ponte Vecchio in 2006 amid concerns over damage to the bridge’s structure and esthetic appeal.

Officials in Paris did the same in 2010, sweeping the iconic Pont des Arts at night to remove thousands of padlocks. They hurt the city’s bridge preservation efforts, officials said. Locks have returned to the bridge in recent years.