Vancouver city councillor launches Twitter campaign to find new home for love locks

I guess you really can't legislate love.

On Tuesday, Vancouver's city hall nixed Councillor George Affleck's proposal to require staff to find a permanent location for that city's love locks.

Love locks are a re-emerging phenomena around the world — in France, Italy, Russia and in Canada. Couples write their names on a padlock and then brace it on a public bridge, fence or gate to symbolize their eternal love.

While that may sound romantic to some, these symbols of love are also becoming a public nuisance.

In 2006 in Florence, according to the Toronto Star, Italian officials cut more than 5,000 locks off the Ponte Vecchio citing concerns over damage to the bridge’s structure.

In 2011, city officials in Toronto were forced to cut about 40 love locks from the Humber River foot bridge claiming that it was becoming eye sore.

Just last month, France's Pont des Arts was shutdown after the weight of its love locks damaged a portion of the famous Paris footbridge.

And, in Vancouver, city staff have been removing them from the Burrard Street Bridge and other public locales.

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Affleck wants a safe and made-in-Vancouver solution for his city's sweethearts.

"There's definitely a need for something like this in Vancouver." he told Yahoo Canada News.

"My intention was to [build on]the opportunity of tourism and the opportunity for doing something fun in the city and to fight that 'no fun city' moniker."

While City Council has opted not to dedicate staff time to the endeavour, they have given Affleck their blessing to find a location on his time and his own dime.

Affleck says that the Vancouver Park Board will discuss potential locations at their meeting next week and he's taken to Twitter to ask the public for help.

He is also pursuing options within the private sector.

"The most likely opportunity, I think is through sponsorship. And that might have to be on private land. But I'll wait to see what happens at Park Board," he said.

"So the immediate step is Park Board...then chatting with the private sector or developers or whoever I can find that might be interested."

If you have any ideas, Affleck would love your help — message him on Twitter with the hashtag #vanlovelocks.

( Photo courtesy of Reuters)

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