City of Powell River took up new business at the committee of the whole meeting on July 17 that is actually old business made new again. Mobile food vending has been a question dogging city hall for at least three summers.
Added to the city’s action list on June 5 as item 43, staff was given direction to review issues raised in a letter from a Tla’amin Nation food truck owner and return to council with a report looking into bylaw regulations related to mobile vendors, business licensing and vacant commercially zoned lands.
The answer is coming, according to city senior director of planning Thomas Knight, but the conflict should be brought into perspective.
“This is not as if we have 17, 18 food trucks vying for five or six spots,” said Knight. “Really we have two that have been making a lot of noise.”
City councillor and committee chair Maggie Hathaway said it was a mobile food vending fiasco and Knight singled out Sli City Grill, owned by Tla’amin Nation entrepreneur Erik Blaney, as one of the noisemakers.
According to Blaney and confirmed by Knight, three preferred Townsite locations where he attempted to locate were rejected because of licensing, occupation permits or zoning bylaws.
“We have to make some noise because the city considers they have their doors open for business and the door has been basically slammed shut in our face three times walking in there trying to get a business licence,” said Blaney, adding that he has been given the runaround at city hall.
“I don't know if it's ineptitude or unwillingness to try and make things work and happen, but basically after going to city hall a number of times with our permit application and having no solutions given at all, we had to keep guessing what was going to work for the food truck,” he said.
The mobile food vending problem will not go away because staff has yet to draft a bylaw for consideration by council.
“We don’t have a separate mobile vending bylaw,” said Knight. “All we have right know is what’s contained in the zoning bylaw, and staff don’t have the discretion to get in there because once we do something like that it’s open season out there and people do what they want.”
Knight recommended to council that it “stick to the regulations you’ve created until they’re changed.”
In June 2017, council asked staff to work on creating a pilot project for that summer to encourage vendors to set up at the South Harbour, where the new Canadian Coast Guard station is being built near the access to the sea walk. One year later the pilot project still has not been approved.
But at the recent committee meeting, Knight brought forward that long-awaited temporary plan for South Harbour and council was reassured that a mobile food vending bylaw is coming, according to city clerk Chris Jackson.
Exactly when council will receive that bylaw recommendation, Jackson could not say, nor could Knight.
“We’ll get to it,” said Knight.
Blaney said making noise is working.
“They're actually starting to think about solutions,” he added.
