A Penhold babysitter says a $300 ticket given to her for operating without a business licence was incorrectly issued.
“I think it's ridiculous,” said Desiree Sandstra, 18. Desiree said she was babysitting one 19-month-old baby three to four days a week for about eight hours a day.
She said she was making about $75 a week for her troubles, which were efforts for a friend.
“It's a personal thing. I know how hard it is to find a babysitter,” she said.
A letter addressed to Desiree from the Town of Penhold says the town was aware she was advertising a dayhome from her residence. The letter, dated Nov. 15, references a previous one sent in October. She was given the ticket Dec. 3.
Desiree acknowledged she did briefly advertise on Kijiji but took it down and decided not to expand into more clients after receiving the initial letter. She said she's not running a dayhome but is instead just babysitting one child.
Her father Phil Sandstra said the first letter had said to disregard the correspondence if she wasn't running a dayhome, and since she wasn't, they followed that direction.
“We did what they said and they hit us with a fine,” he said.
An outpouring of support for Desiree came after some information came out on the Facebook group Penhold Happenings.
“I was absolutely blown away by the support for Desiree,” Phil said, adding people had offered to help collect money to cover the fine.
Phil said later that Desiree had lost her client as a result of not being able to take care of the child while this is being sorted out.
Mayor Dennis Cooper said Dec. 13 that council had a discussion about the issue and the Sandstras will have to follow an appeal process laid out on the back of the ticket.
“We can't sort of pull that ticket. That's not how it works,” he said. “We have to follow the appeal process.”
He said there was misunderstanding and miscommunication on both sides.
“Unfortunately we're trying to fix it after the fact,” he said.
He did say one thing that's clear to council is the bylaw language around dayhomes and daycares needs to be clarified so there's a clear difference between occasional babysitters and full-time operations.
Phil said they'll follow the appeal process.
“It's still a bunch of malarkey,” he said. “That ticket should never have been issued in the first place if they'd done their homework.”
