Monday is the last day for Toronto's drinking in parks pilot project. After that, the 27 parks where drinking has been allowed will return to default status, and the parks prohibition era begins again.

What does this mean for drinking culture in Toronto? and does anyone care?

The importance of the pilot is perhaps less than might seem, given that alcohol drinking is also prominent in many other city parks that are not part of the current pilot.

Only 27 parks out of 1500 in the city met the pilot criteria and had city councillors opt in - they made the decision for their wards.

City communications manager Eric Holmes points out that until the Ford government changed the law in 2019, municipalities didn't have the power to allow responsible drinking, and that Toronto was the first municipality in Ontario to give it a go under the new framework.

Holmes says that there is a "Low number of complaints so far, we had two complaints to 311 that bylaw officers responded to in pilot parks related to alcohol compared to 28 in non-pilot parks. There were 0 charges from bylaw officers  in the pilot parks. 1 charge in a non pilot park."

"Anecdotally, most of the feedback is that generally people were drinking responsibility and were grateful fo the opportunity," Holmes added.

City staff will spend some time analyzing the data, from the survey, feedback to city councillors, from bylaw officers, to 311 etc, and will make a package for city council including a recommendations - then city council will decide what to do next.

But in the meantime, come Monday the bylaws in all 27 pilot parks will revert back to before the pilot.

"Next steps are that staff are expected to return to Council with a report on the Alcohol in Parks Pilot, including recommendations based in part on pilot feedback and observations, in early 2024," says Holmes.

A walk through Trinity Bellwoods on a lovely afternoon last week showed very little open public drinking. People were being low-key about it, and seemed more focused on other activities.

Alcohol consumption has decreased since the pandemic peak, and sales of wine and beer have hit all time lows, not made up for by increased cooler and cider sales, which is matched by trends in non-alcoholic drinks and sober-curious lifestyles, especially among younger people.

Some questioned why the pilot project needed to be done at all.

I asked city councillor Josh Matlow if he was the city councillor who put forward the pilot, and he was very clear that "I’m the city councillor who advocated for responsible adults to be able to drink in the park."

He would have preferred to skip the pilot, saying: "The fact that the city of Toronto feels it needs to do a pilot on something that is normal around the world is silly. It's unoriginal to just all responsible adults to have a wine or a beer in the park. Cities around the world allow this."

However, the pilot is what we got and Matlow is interested to see the data, which early reports indicate are largely positive (You can answer the survey until October 16).

Matlow calls bylaw enforcement of public drinking "a ridiculous use of public resources. People are not going to get drunk and disorderly suddenly just because having a responsible drink suddenly legal. The bylaw isn't going to change people's behaviour. People who are drinking responsibly are going to continue to do so."

Being drunk and disorderly remains illegal, and public urination remains a bylaw offence.  City spokesperson Holmes adds: "This law was never intended to allow parties, liquor sales- anything more than a couple of friends drinking quietly still means that permit is required."

Matlow points out that while drinking in parks may seem like an unimportant issue on the surface "it's also an equity issue."

"During the pandemic people who have the privilege of having backyards could drink. We have many people with no outdoor access at all, let along backyards. Public spaces should be amenities to come together and be together. You can pay to buy a beer at a bar or a patio," suggests Matlow.

He adds that "While Toronto doesn’t keep stats on this, when you look at the stats for  places like New York it's overwhelmingly people of colour who are targeted for enforcement."

Just because some people have been able to drink in the parks largely unmolested, it is still important to change the law to match the practice because of how some people such as racialized people and homeless people are disproportionately targeted for bylaw enforcement.

Anecdotally, it seems that even in non pilot parks, bylaw officers have dialed down on enforcing tickets for alcohol in parks.

This is a welcome change from scenes early in the pandemic where there was occasional mass ticketing of even individuals with a single beer.

Glyn Bowerman is the host of Spacing radio. He told blogTO "I have been known to drink in parks before the pilot happened, and will continue drink in parks occasionally. I'd be surprised it it changes other people's behaviour."

He thinks council should have gone straight for decriminalization instead of doing the pilot.

"I think it was silly to do it as a pilot in the first place. But that's a very Toronto thing," says Bowerman.

"We think things that work in other places will somehow be a disaster in Toronto. I'd be interested in the feedback, I know that they are doing a survey. But I can imagine that the behaviour has not changed so much that Toronto has started into a hedonistic decline."

Like many, he found the criteria for park inclusion arbitrary: "For me I found it silly that parks anywhere near water are excluded. People go out on a boat and they get *hammered* - we know that happens, but we just can't be trusted to go to the commons and drink one."

Bowerman thinks too much effort is being spent on the park alcohol issue: "I just want to point out the hypocrisy. We know that things like traffic laws are barely enforced and that's a literal matter of life and death."

Another person I spoke with, who wished to be kept anonymous, has been sober for over five years and is a keen city hall enthusiast.

"In a general sense, I'm for any progress that does away with prohibitionary policies surrounding alcohol," he told me. "Shame carries immense weight in addiction and current restrictions virtually guarantee punitive measures are taken against people who have a dependency on alcohol."

"There are many European countries with far looser alcohol restrictions and lower addiction rates - alcoholism is a social disease that is far more multi-faceted than whether or not some people can split a bottle of wine in the park."

"On the other hand, spaces for sober [people] in the city are already quite limited. It is often difficult at various stages of recovery to be near the stuff. This doesn't mean parks should be dry - just that sober venues, events, and drinks for adults should be normalized. And with alcohol use waning among younger generations, I've noticed this is happening without much intervention."

He points out there there are policy parallels between the war on drugs, adding: "We know cops cost more than health programs - people wanting addicts out of sight, out of mind should not influence public policy."

The pandemic has irrevocably changed drinking culture in Toronto , and how people use parks and public spaces. It remains to be seen it the laws will change to match the new reality.