City Of Montreal Removes All "Love Locks" From Old Port Bridge

It was only a few short months ago that Montrealers and tourists alike began putting their "love locks" on the Old Port bridge and throwing the key into the water, locking away their love forever. It's a very cute idea that has come to a swift and abrupt end, thanks to the city of Montreal.

Over the weekend, all of the locks that were hanging on the bridge's fencing were cut off and taken away. The Old Port management were worried that the heavy padlocks would cause structural problems for the bridge, since it wasn't designed to bear all of that excess weight. After the partial collapse of the original Love Lock bridge in Paris, we can't really blame them for wanting to prevent any possible damage.

Now the old rule is that you shouldn't bring up a problem unless you have a solution, right? So here's a potential one. The city could begin selling plastic (or some other light weight material) hollow padlocks locks, which would be essentially weightless, so people could continue to clip them to the bridge. They wouldn't even need to be functional as locks, it's the symbol of them that really matters. This would bring in money for the city through the sales, attract tourists (especially since the one in Paris is now gone) and it wouldn't interfere with the structural integrity of the bridge.

And that's just what I came up with off the top of my head, so I'm sure if the city (and maybe some actual engineers) put a little time and effort into it, they could come up with a way to save the budding love lock tradition.