Bald man fights to use pool without wearing a swimming cap

For 12 years, ever since he moved to the Sainte-Julie suburb of Montreal, Canada, in 2003, Yann Marcotte swam regularly at the municipal pool without incident. That is, until the pool changed its swimming cap policy last March, ruling that everyone, regardless of the length of their hair, had to wear a cap. "I'm a bald man," says Yann Marcotte. "When I swim [with a cap on] it's very, very hot ... It's very uncomfortable." Marcotte, a competitive open water swimmer, refused to don a cap. So the next time he went swimming, the lifeguard on duty called the pool manager, who called the police. An officer was dispatched to escort him out of the pool - not once, but three times over the course of a month, the last time on April 12. Marcotte was not arrested, nor was he fined.

"I'm not a criminal," he said, adding each time the police arrived, he left the pool without a fight. "But it is not the law. It is just a pool rule." However, it's a rule the general director of Sainte-Julie's sports and cultural centre refuses to bend on, even for a man without a hair on his head. "There are more and more bald people," says Éric Hervieux. "There are two types ... those that I call the 'real bald' and the 'false bald.' The real bald are those that have naturally lost their hair. The false bald are those that shave their heads ... When their hair starts to grow back, it becomes problematic. They're used to not wearing the bathing cap - but then their hair comes back." Hervieux said the pool decided to take a hardline stance, because other bathers don't like strands of hair getting stuck to their hands or ending up in their mouths.



It's unhygienic, he said. For the record, Marcotte is a 'real bald.' And he doesn't understand why, if hair is the issue, it's okay for a man who often swims in the lane next to him, a man with a beard "like Fidel Castro's", not to cover his face. He hasn't given in on the swimming cap rule without a fight. He took his case to the recreation centre's board of directors. It refused to budge. The town's mayor, who sits on that board, also didn't lend him a sympathetic ear. Marcotte even participated in three sessions with a citizen's mediator, but mediation failed. Marcotte says he doesn't understand why Sainte-Julie bureaucrats won't grant him an exemption from the rule, especially because the pool has granted exceptions in at least two other cases.

Women bathers may wear loose-fitting shower caps, as long as they don't dunk their heads in the water. And a boy with autism whose disability means he is uncomfortable in a tight-fitting cap is allowed in the pool without one. "That's different," said Hervieux, adding that he knows Marcotte wears a cap when he competes, because that's a competition rule. "If he follows those rules, why can't he follow ours?" Hervieux asked. Marcotte hasn't tried to set foot in the municipal pool since last April. For the summer, he switched to jogging, but with winter approaching, he is eager to swim again - without a cap, however. "I think the only thing I can do now is a legal proceeding," he said, however, he said he doesn't have the resources to mount a Charter fight. "It's like David versus Goliath," Marcotte said. "I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a simple citizen. It's why it's very hard to defend my point."