Condo owner must pay fine for ‘colourful curtains,’ B.C. tribunal finds

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A condo owner was fined six years after he hung “colourful curtains” in his unit, according to B.C.’s Civil Resolution Tribunal, which dismissed the man’s challenge of a $200 penalty for breaches of the building’s bylaws.

Gilbert Maurice Papineau filed a claim with the tribunal seeking to have the fines declared invalid, according to a decision published online last week.

“Mr. Papineau suggests that the strata should not have bothered him about the curtains because they had been up for so long,” tribunal vice-chair Eric Regehr wrote.

The curtains went up in 2018, and Papineau was fined three times in 2024 before he ultimately took the window coverings down, according to the decision.

The tribunal heard that the strata—which manages the common assets and common property of the condo building—had passed a window-covering-specific bylaw in 2017.

“It prohibits residents from hanging ‘anything to or on a window, that is unsightly, that is visible from the exterior of a strata lot, other than window coverings that are white, cream, grey or beige,’” Regehr wrote.

“While the bylaw is confusingly drafted, I accept that it permits window coverings only if they are one of the listed colours.”

The curtains were either pink, red, blue or a combination of those colours, according to the decision. While the tribunal accepted that the complaint was submitted to the strata council after the drapes had been up for years, the decision noted the strata is required to respond to complaints about bylaw breaches and to enforce bylaws if they are contravened.

“The issue of curtain colour was important enough to the owners to pass a bylaw about it,” Regehr wrote, adding that once the complaint was received “the strata had to take action.”

Papineau’s complaint was therefore dismissed, leaving him on the hook for the $200.