The City of Grand Forks appears to have settled a long-running trespass dispute with a couple who lived out of a trailer on a popular nudist beach.
City hall sought an injunction from a British Columbia Supreme Court in September against Melanie Jennings and Sean Hornbrook, after city officials said efforts to move the couple’s trailer from a stretch of Granby riverfront known as Bare Ass Beach broke down in late August.
READ MORE: How a Grand Forks woman and her family came to live at Bare Ass Beach
READ MORE: City of Grand Forks files court injunction against alleged ‘Bare Ass Beach’ campers
Judge Heather MacNaughton granted the city an injunction to remove the couple at a Rossland hearing Thursday, Nov. 19. Jennings and Hornbrook trespassed on city property when they parked their “travel trailer” at the beach around June 10, breaking city zoning and fire bylaws, the judge found.
The judge noted in her written ruling that Jennings and Hornbrook did not respond to the city’s notice of claim, served to them at their trailer on Oct. 27. The couple didn’t attend the city’s application for the injunction at the Rossland courthouse, she added.
Jennings told The Gazette that she removed her trailer from city property Monday, Nov. 23.
Mayor Brian Taylor said he hopes to revisit his idea of stamping the city’s claim to the beach and surrounding area on the north side of the Granby River.
“In the long-term, I’m hoping we can develop that site and make it more difficult for someone to just move in and set up camp there in future. I think we need to protect that as a natural asset of the city,” he said Wednesday, Nov. 25.
“It’s been a popular swimming hole ever since I’ve been here in Grand Forks.”
Taylor said he looked forward to addressing the idea at budget discussions ahead of the fiscal year 2021.
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laurie.tritschler@grandforksgazette.ca
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