Judged in April, the ax fell on Monday for the GTR Mountain company in Chamrousse. Here it is sentenced to a series of fineswhile their ten snowmobiles seized last February are now confiscated. Justice accuses them of having practiced their activity of snowmobile excursions on ski slopes, whereas recreational use of motorized vehicles on snow cannot be done according to the deputy prosecutor that on a closed ground, delimited.
A decision that do not understand the co-manager of the company Charles Tribalat: “This base of snowmobiles, there is over 32 years old that it exists, that snowmobiles circulate on the Chamrousse ski area, _with the support of course from the piste service_, the town hall, the agreement of the prefecture. We work with respect for the environment and we have no accidents“.
A heavy judgment
In detail, one of his instructors received a suspended fine of €1,400 for illegal use of a motor vehicle. The company and its manager pay for complicity 319 fines of €10 including €5 suspended, as well as €3,000 for having made the advertising of their activity, and finally 2000€ of damages and interests to be paid to each of the two associations which have joined as civil parties Mountain Wilderness and France Nature Environnement. As to ten snowmobiles seized in the winter, here they are confiscated for real.
A decision close to the requisitions of the prosecution, very heavy for Charles Tribalat: “We welcome more than 13,000 customers a year in Chamrousse, we bring the local restaurants to life, we have eight employees on the base, families who are settled on Chamrousse so it is an absolutely tragic situation for us. It’s something of very very hard morally and economically“.
“A signal addressed to companies in the jurisdiction”
The deputy prosecutor, Mathilde Porret-Blanc, mountain referent at the Grenoble prosecutor’s office, welcomes this judgment: “This decision enshrines the primacy of two imperatives, which are public safety and the environmental Protection. I believe that this decision should be understood as a signal addressed to companies of the jurisdiction, and invite the companies which would not currently be in the rules to comply with the law in force“.
An effect that Charles Tribalat strongly doubts: “We are represented by a National Syndicate of Quad and Snowmobile Professionals. Today all of my colleagues are stunned by this decision. We are the only ones in France today to be impacted in this way“. He now plans to call, but will not make the decision”only after studying the judgment in more detail with our lawyer“.