Toronto Police to Dufferin Street’s dancing crossing guard: please stop the music

Kathleen Byers, a crossing guard at Alexander Muir Junior Public School, is a west-end icon, and not just because of her sunny demeanour and eye-catching reflective vest. For the past few years, the 64-year-old former fitness instructor has semi-famously been livening up the Dufferin and Dundas West area with impromptu on-duty dance routines, soundtracked with top-40 music from a portable speaker.

Apparently, she’s been a public menace all this time—or at least that’s what her supervisors at the Toronto Police Service seem to be saying. The Star reports that the police have ordered Byers to stop the dancing, so her not-at-all-provocative moves don’t lead drivers astray. “We have to make sure the directions she’s giving drivers are clear,” a police spokesperson told the Star. Byers’s supporters are already starting to register their discontent on Twitter. We hope this tragic injustice is remedied somehow, and that one day all crossing guards will be required to stop traffic with nothing but dance.