This photo taken from the Prince Albert Historical Society’s Facebook page shows River Street after 1924. In those days, the city was still trying to balance how vehicles and horses would use streets. (Submitted photo/ William Jones)

By Susan McNeil

City Hall

City cancels bread bylaw originated in 1908

Mar 2, 2022 | 9:00 AM

There will be no more position of bread inspector in the City of Prince Albert. The City has removed the governing bylaw, along with another one regarding how horses can be ridden in town and over 2,000 other redundant bylaws.

The move was part of an effort by the city to remove thousands of unnecessary bylaws still listed in its registry.

“They were kind of interesting because when you read them, it sort of gives a history of the city. You know, the horses down Central Avenue and stuff,” said Mayor Greg Dionne.

The city had 5,637 bylaws listed with only 542 of those active and enforceable. More were active but not frequently used.

Council voted on Monday to repeal 2,520 of the bylaws, including a 1908 bylaw governing the size of a loaf of bread.

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Bread used to be such a serious business that the province of Saskatchewan enacted legislation in 1924 that specified the dimensions and weight of a loaf right after baking and along with what it should weigh in the 12 hours after baking.

“No person shall make bread for sale, or sell or offer bread for sale, except in loaves weighing, net weight, unwrapped, 20 ounces or 40 ounces or 60 ounces, avoirdupois, and except fruit loaves which shall weigh not less than 16 ounces avoirdupois,” reads provincial law.

Avoirdupois was a system of weights based on the premise that a pound is 16 ounces.

In 1925, Prince Albert created the position of bread inspector, which was around the same time Saskatchewan was enacting legislation about the conditions bread could be baked in and regulating dimensions and weights.

Making bread for sale that did not meet with the provincial guidelines was an offence with the bread inspector having the right to enter bakeshops and weigh loaves. Offending loaves were removed and given to a charitable institution.

Also gone is the bylaw regarding horse riding in town with the animals treated somewhat like modern traffic is.

“I found the horse ones most interesting. Where you can park your horse, how fast your horse can go, the direction you have to go,” Dionne said.

Horses were still the main mode of transportation in Saskatchewan in 1913 but automobiles were already growing in numbers.

Now repealed, a 1918 city bylaw regulate both motor vehicles and liveries for hire.

What would now be considered odd or unusual bylaws that were repealed yesterday included several designating Prince Albert time as opposed to Mountain Standard Time (1919) and, in 1920, regulating “the bathing or washing of the person in public.”

Also repealed is a 1961 bylaw that regulates the use of ‘rebound tumbling centres’, which was defined as “a piece of fabric or surface designed to provide resilience by virtue of its own elasticity or that provided by an elastic or spring suspension system or both, within a staple and tested frame and intended to be used for jumping, bouncing or acrobatic tumbling.”

Nowadays, these are called trampolines.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow