Colten Williams began putting together his Christmas light show a decade ago at the behest of his grandmother, who was inspired by light shows she had seen on TV.
But trouble started brewing in Kingsville after several neighbours lodged complaints about their street being crowded with cars for six weeks every year.
This month, the city enacted a new bylaw that would force the Williams family to apply for a permit for their display while also placing restrictions on the number of hours they would be allowed to leave the lights on.
“They basically limited the amount of hours I could have my show from about 28 hours a week down to 10 hours a week,” Williams said. “So you have 500 hours, 600 hours worth of set up time just to have 40 hours the lights on all month long. That’s an insane amount of work.”
Rogers said the council is sad to see them turn off the lights but said the show had outgrown its location as well.
“We were saddened to learn that the Williams family will not move forward with their light display this year,” he said.
“Our discussions with the family last year at a council meeting we both agreed that they had outgrown the neighbourhood.”
Rogers went on to say that the city had tried to work with the family to find an alternative location but was unable to meet their demands.
It’s in the middle of suburbia. There are no nearby lots, and their street has no sidewalks.
Downtown Kingsville to the edge of the suburbs is about 2km in the furthest directions.
So the issue is that the city has decided to not build sidewalks for super walkable distances, there are more than enough lots around.