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“If it would have been me who was watering the driveway, I would have paid the ticket without saying anything,” Lamy said. “But it was my girls, who were just having fun.”

I am not a lady, but a child Félycia

Lamy was so mad that she took to Facebook to lament her situation. Part of the post read: “I go out to see what happened because I hear a stranger talking to my children, (and he explained) to me that he saw (her) watering the asphalt. If she would have been 14, she would have had a discount ticket, but given that she is 13, I am responsible for a full ticket.”

The post received more than 100 shares and 32 comments expressing anger and encouraging Lamy to fight the ticket. Before she could, journalists from a local newspaper arrived at her home to ask her about the ticket.

About five hours after the visit from the journalists from Le Droit, Lamy received a call from the city of Granby. Serge Drolet, the city’s environmental coordinator, told Lamy that the ticket was being withdrawn and that there was an error in judgment.

If it would have been me who was watering the driveway, I would have paid the ticket. But it was my girls, who were just having fun Genevieve Lamy

According to Gabriel Bruneau, city director of land management planning and Drolet’s direct superior, the green patrol member assumed the 13-year-old was an adolescent cleaning the driveway, and not just a kid enjoying a sunny June day, trying to cool off with her little sister.

Once Félycia clarified her age, Bruneau said the training officer went to speak to her mother with the intention of fining her. “He told the mother she was not allowed to use the water to clean the driveway and the mother just tried to explain, and for the patroller, (he) took the regulation by the book.”