City council voted five to one in favour a simplified wood burning appliance bylaw on Monday night.

Coun. Chris Moslin said the bylaw is modelled after the unsightly premises bylaw and relies on resident complaints to alert city staff to infractions. The complaints must be written and come from two separate residences in the vicinity of the home at which point staff will provide educational materials to the resident and ask them to discontinue the “nuisance.”

If the city receives additional complaints after sending a letter to the residence a maximum fine of $500 may be issued.

Two previous proposed bylaws were defeated by council under criticism that they were “punitive” and would affect seniors and low income residents.

“The intent was to keep it simple to make it easy for staff to enforce and so people would have the right to complain to staff, and staff would know what to do when they received a complaint,” said Moslin.

Moslin said anyone being impacted directly by smoke can lodge a complaint.

Coun. Gene Robert voted against the bylaw.

He said he was concerned about the words “vicinity” and “nuisance” in the bylaw.

“I would really like to see a successful bylaw put through in regards to these concerns, but I find these words really vague,” he said.

Moslin said the word nuisance is defined in the Community Charter.