The City of New Westminster has no plans of breaking up a lovers’ tradition on the waterfront.
Quay D ’Amour encourages people to bring their lover or loved ones to Westminster Pier Park and attach a lovelock to a fence at the park. Around the world, couples write or engrave their names on padlocks and attach them to a fence or structure as a symbol of their endless love.
While New West is in the early days of its lovefest with the lovelocks, Paris is no longer feeling the love. Officials in the City of Love have begun removing nearly one million locks fastened to the Pont Des Arts bridge, saying they spoil the esthetics of the bridge, are detrimental to the structure and cause accidents. Last year, one of the bridge’s railings collapsed under the weight of all the locks.
“I don’t think we’ve reached the type of issues that Paris has reached with their lovelocks,” said Mayor Jonathan Cote. “I think there’s an area of the park where it’s been set up, and if remains contained to that area and doesn’t cause any problems to the infrastructure, I don’t see the city needing to take any action on that.”
Cote said the parks, culture and recreation department will be monitoring the lovelocks over time to see if they’re impacting the structure, but to date they haven’t caused any of the issues that have arisen in other cities around the world.
“We have received some positive feedback from people,” he said. “I remember going down there once and I saw a wedding photograph being done in the backdrop of the lovelocks, so people were having fun with that.”
Dublin, New York and Rome are among the cities that have attracted the attention of lovelocks. Last spring, New York City’s transportation department asked people to stop placing padlocks on the Brooklyn Bridge and removed several thousand locks from the structure.
In response to a plethora of padlocks placed on the Ponte Milvio Bridge on the Tiber River, Rome’s mayor introduced a fine in 2007 for people who attached locks to the bridge. Five years later, the city removed thousands of love locks as they were damaging the structure.
Along with couples, families have also been known to show their love by placing love locks on structures.
Cote said he and his wife Alix haven’t locked up their love at Westminster Pier Park - but he hasn’t ruled it out.
“Maybe we should go down there with the girls,” he said. “I did see a family down there. They were putting a lock on and the kids all had tiny locks. We thought that was quite adorable, but we haven’t yet gone down there.”
