The following article appeared in the May 2 edition of the Guelph Tribune:
City council has decided to embrace a “co-operative” approach to late-night downtown problems, rather than trying to pass extra policing and cleanup costs onto bars and restaurants that stay open after midnight.
This means extra costs estimated at about $174,000 annually – $125,000 for policing and $49,000 for cleanup services by city staff – will continue to be paid through the city’s general tax base.
A motion by Coun. Bob Bell to refer the matter back to staff to have them prepare detailed, costed options for recovering the extra costs from bars and restaurants failed Monday on a 6-6 tie vote. This brings to an end, at least for the time being, a debate that has gone on for years in the city about shifting costs onto businesses seen as contributing to downtown late-night problems.
Bell took issue with a city staff report recommending that the city continue to tap the general tax base for the extra downtown costs and “continue current efforts to reduce the source of these problems in a co-operative way.”
The Night Life Task Force that was formed in the spring of 2007 to address late-night bar and food seller issues doesn’t include any “victims” of downtown rowdyism and vandalism, Bell said.
“I think the view that is being presented is fairly skewed,” he told council.
The 12-member task force includes Coun. Ian Findlay, two members of the Downtown Guelph Business Association, two U of G reps, two police reps including Police Chief Rob Davis, two city hall officials including downtown economic development manager David Corks, one bar owner and two local neighbourhood group representatives.
Bell downplayed the staff report’s claim that problems related to night life activity are on the decline in Guelph. “The contention that things are getting better may be true, but marginally,” he said.
Bell also said the city’s efforts to get a lot more people to live in the downtown area might fall short unless more is done about “vandalism and hooliganism late at night.”
Without this, he said, “we will never be successful with residential intensification” in the downtown.
Chief Davis, though, painted a different picture. He told council that malicious damage and graffiti happens all over the city, and that there is an advantage in having many bars in one spot where police can concentrate their efforts.
Having a “vibrant” downtown both day and night, which Guelph has, comes with costs, he said.
Davis said it needs to be conveyed to city residents that “crime is on the decrease downtown right now. I think it is a safe downtown. We have to encourage people to come down and enjoy it.”
Coun. Gloria Kovach said the city “should at least take a look” at the “bar stool tax” imposed in Barrie, where large bar owners pay more than small ones.
Findlay, though, questioned the logic of a “two-tier” tax system that imposes higher fees on businesses such as downtown bars. Would that mean, he asked, that the city should impose higher property taxes on residents in neighbourhoods where there is more police activity resulting from substance abuse and violence.
Corks said he hadn’t been aware of Barrie’s bar-stool tax, and he said he didn’t know of any other cities in Ontario that try to recover extra costs from downtown bars.
The Downtown Guelph Business Association has passed a resolution opposing the levying of fees from specific types of businesses, which it calls “differential taxation.”