Chestermere City Council is moving forward with passing a new combative sports bylaw, after passing the second reading.
At the Feb. 7 council meeting, Alex Halat brought forward a combative sports bylaw.
After working with youth in the community and seeing more youth wanting to get involved in boxing, Halat was inspired to bring forward the bylaw, which would allow Chestermere’s Olympus Boxing Club to host large-scale events.
“The demographic of the sport is a little bit different, it’s not typical affluent families. It’s kids that need help. Kids go to Silver Gloves and Nationals and are getting to the point where they have the ability to go professional,” Halat said. “We have a couple of kids who have the means to travel to compete in pro, but about 90 per cent of them can’t.”
Halat explained to city councillors that the other professional boxing commission in the province is in Cold Lake, and within the last year, Cold Lake council and the Chestermere Olympus Boxing Club’s legal team helped craft the proposed bylaw.
“Locally, we don’t see a lot of professional fights. It’s getting youth onto the next level, and it’s something other than going to Calgary,” Halat said.
Under the bylaw, the event promoter would be reasonable for security, and insurance, with no legal liability for the city.
“I’m trying to get something local for our youth to stay local, and become local professionals,” Halat said.
The events could be held anywhere in the community, with the first event scheduled for June.
“We want to get three or four locals on that card and springboard them into their professional careers,” Halat said.
Hosting professional boxing events would not only benefit local boxers but also the community by attracting visitors to the city.
“We have a lot of people in our community who work with youth. The group I have behind me took the initiative to take this project on about a year and a half ago. It was something we thought about and worked with council to come up with a lot of unique ideas for this town and springboard us to this point,” Halat said.
He added that other communities start boxing clubs, but it quickly fizzles out, however, Chestermere’s club has continued to grow to about 150 members, from the original 15.
“We’ve had some volunteers in our community who spend a lot of time with these youth, in terms of keeping them on the straight and narrow, and keeping their marks up, which got us to this point,” Halat said.
The bylaw is still subject to change following further review.
“Chestermere is an active place, and it’s nice to have different activities, and different varieties within the city,” Mayor Jeff Colvin said.
