Vernon drafts ban on mixed martial arts
VERNON – Vernon is hitting mixed martial arts where it hurts.
City council is moving forward with the creation of a bylaw that would ban Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) events within municipal limits.
“We don’t need them,” Coun. Bob Spiers says. “It’s just the association with the type of people that run those events and the type of people that show up at those events. It might cause you a liability problem.”
The move comes on the heels of recent changes to how the province regulates and controls the sport.
In May 2012, the province passed the Athletic Commissioner Act (Bill 50) which brought about provincial regulation for professional boxing and mixed martial arts events.
Spiers says every municipality has been given the right to chose whether or not to allow the sport within its boundaries.
Vernon Mayor Rob Sawatzky says it’s not something Vernon wants or needs.
“We’ve had discussions over the last couple of years from the police informing us that there’s a very strong historical and well known relationship between mixed martial arts events and organized crime,” Sawatzky says.
He says local government is mandated to protect peoples’ health, something not fostered in the sport of MMA.
“(In mixed martial arts) the gold standard is to render your opponent unconscious and that’s brain damage, and that’s damaging to your health,” Sawatzky says.
Council directed staff to prepare a draft bylaw for consideration.
To contact the reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston at chelston@infotelnews.ca or call 250-309-5230. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
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3 responses
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So just mixed martial arts are banded? Is anything else not allowed? (I trained in Ninjutsu arts for a few years but my sensei is currently busy with ambulance stuff) That I can understand though.
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To paint all mixed martial arts events, fans and participants in a bad light because of a few bad apples is very small minded. In that case perhaps we could say then that many politicians have had historical ties to organised crime. Perhaps ALL councilors need 24/7 monitoring since they have the ability to affect a communities finances far more then mma events. Martial arts saves far more people then it harms.
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I’d be happy to educate Sawatzky and these councilors on the FACTS surrounding MMA so they can make their decision based on actual information rather than opinion.The National Institute for Sports Safety ran a 20 year study comparing the safety of MMA to other main stream sports (contact or otherwise) and they found that basketball, hockey, football, baseball, cheer leading, table tennis (seriously) and a host of other “safe” sports/activities were actually responsible for far more serious injuries and death (in some cases more than 10x).I have promoted 20 shows in over half a dozen cities in the North West US and Western Canada…i’ve lobbied numerous city councils to allow us to host an event and all of them have been happy with the outcome after the event.Banning the entire sport of MMA because of a few bad apples is akin to banning the hockey because of a Todd Bertuzzi sucker punch.Get rid of the bad apples – Not the tree!
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