As the city gears up for Homeless Awareness Week, a controversial street pastor with an affinity for loud preaching is getting ready to go to court.
    Artur Pawlowski will be visiting the Court of Queen’s Bench several times this month for 20 bylaw and police tickets he and other members of his church have received. Pawlowski says the city and police unfairly ticketed his church for feeding homeless people in Calgary.
    Since January, Pawlowski and members of his Street Church have been given more than $2,000 in tickets for various alleged offences, including causing objectionable noise, causing unnecessary noise from a motor vehicle, jaywalking, stunting, placing material on a street, offering goods and services on a street and offering goods and services in a park.
    Of the 20 tickets, Pawlowski says only eight are related to noise. “Most of those tickets are for those other ridiculous charges.” He says the city is persecuting him because he’s bringing attention to homelessness. He has no intention of paying the tickets. “We are going to fight every one of them.”
    Homeless Awareness Week runs from September 14 to 22.