Your morning cup of takeout coffee could get a lot more expensive in Mississauga, if Mayor Hazel McCallion has her way.

She wants to see the city’s idling bylaw enforced at all drive-thrus to deal with the traffic and pollution problems they cause.

“If you went into a lot of those drive-thrus you could charge a lot of those cars. Drive-thrus are contrary to our idling bylaw. It’s completely hypocritical to have an idling bylaw and to allow drive-thrus,” McCallion said Wednesday.

The mayor told Mississauga city council she opposes them for three reasons: the pollution caused by idling; traffic problems, particularly during rush hour when lineups spill into turning lanes; and the routine violation of a city bylaw that prohibits idling for more than three minutes.

McCallion favours an outright ban on drive-thrus, but faces the reality that existing ones were approved under the city’s zoning laws. She said she’s not going to bring forward a motion to ban them before she retires this fall, after 36 years in office — she already tried that and was shot down by council.

But she wants Mississauga residents to take up the fight, and proposes enforcing the idling bylaw as a first step.

If McCallion gets her way, people waiting for a coffee or burger could face a $150 fine if they’re caught idling for more than three minutes.

Councillor George Carlson, chair of the city’s environment committee, says the city could start handing out tickets instead of the warnings that have been standard since the idling bylaw was passed in 2009.

However, he says, “You’d probably start World War 3 with drive-thru businesses.”

Carlson said the idea of banning drive-thrus completely was brought to the environment committee about four years ago, but because 80 to 90 per cent of the drive-thrus likely ever to be built in the city already had been, council instead passed a bylaw that restricts their proximity to each other, limits the number in specified areas, and prohibits them in certain designated pedestrian areas.

“Tim Hortons presented to us. They said their goal is to get cars in and out of the drive through in a minute-and-a-half,” Carlson said.

The coffee shop company did not respond to a request to confirm this or to comment on the possibility of customers being ticketed.

Carlson said drive-thrus are a feature of the suburban landscape, but things are changing in Mississauga, as density has begun to replace decades’ worth of sprawl.

“We’re at the end of this suburban era. In the future a lot of these restaurants and businesses, they’re not going to waste their money building drive-thrus,” he said. “It’s a disappearing feature here. But it takes time.”

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The issue was addressed at council Wednesday in response to a staff report on how the city is dealing with the effects of climate change.

Carlson, a tireless environmental advocate, said that while exhaust from idling cars in drive-thru lines does have an impact on the city’s carbon emissions, he has bigger priorities.

“What can we do to curb monster homes? We have so many 6,000-square-foot homes with two people in them. All that heating and cooling — it’s an incredible waste of energy.”

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