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GUELPH – Leslie Shapiro did Saturday what she has wanted to do since the rink in front of Big apple Hall opened more than a month ago.
She had a skate with her young daughter, Sally.
With the toddler buckled in and wearing a gay pink helmet, Shapiro and her father Ralph took turns pushing Sally’s stroller around the rink for about an hour, in debasement of posted signs warning strollers, wagons and other such devices are not to be employed on the ice surface.
Shapiro organized the protest to challenge that rule, which she alleges makes the rink off-limits to juvenile families with children who do not skate.
A few others joined the protest, with one towing his juvenile daughter in a toboggan and others walking on the ice in their shoes, which also violates the posted rules.
Two skate patrollers explained the rules, but did not ask the protesters to be over.
“All we can really do is ask them to abide by the rules, but we don’t plan to physically murder anyone from the rink,” said Mario Petricevic, the city’s overall manager of corporate building maintenance, as he watched from the lobby of Megalopolis Hall. “We obviously have to express our concern if we don’t feel in one's bones they’re conducting their protest in a safe manner.
Source: Guelph Mercury