Nova Scotia RCMP has charged and ticketed a church and several members of its congregation for the second week in a row with violating terms laid out in the province’s Health Protection Act.
Kings County RCMP were tipped off Saturday night that the Weston Christian Fellowship church, located on Brooklyn Street in Berwick would be holding an in-person church service on Sunday, said RCMP Cpl. Chris Marshall.
RCMP ticketed seven people at the faith gathering on Sunday that contravenes the public health act and resulted in police issuing $2,000 tickets to seven individuals who attended the church service. The church organization was fined $11,000.
“There was a faith-based gathering occurring when our members arrived on the scene,” said Marshall.
“There was a much smaller gathering than there was last weekend, so it would appear that a number of people are starting to abide by the public health restrictions, but there were still some people there today.”
This is the third week in a row police were called to the Weston Christian Fellowship Church — RCMP responded to a similar complaint last week and charged 26 people in attendance and the church organization with violating public health safety measures.
Police responded to a similar complaint at the Evangelical church on May 2 and issued a warning that the faith-gathering was in violation of provincial orders.
Marshall says the RCMP will enforce the public health restrictions and that the time for education has passed.
“Given that we keep going to the same places over and over again, our officers are certainly not going to be exercising any discretion. There will be fines issued,” said Marshall.
“We all have to do our part as Nova Scotians to abide by the health restrictions and try to get ourselves to return to a little bit of normalcy.”