The following article appeared in the April 30 edition of the Guelph Mercury:
Downtown bar owners won’t be paying increased fees to the city anytime soon, although a city council motion that narrowly failed this week wanted to explore doing just that.
Instead, council approved a staff recommendation to continue working with downtown stakeholders, including the Downtown Guelph Business Association and the downtown nightlife task force, as a way to reduce costs associated with downtown, rather than recover them.
Councillor Ian Findlay, who sits on the nightlife task force, said getting at the root of the problem — the proliferation of bars in the downtown — will take a variety of approaches. That means adapting buildings for new uses, improving lighting and storefronts and making small changes like increasing the number of garbage cans.
“It will solve the problem as opposed to trying to Band-Aid the effects of the problem,” he said.
Coun. Bob Bell disagrees. He introduced a motion at Monday’s meeting for the city’s legal department to explore ways of recovering downtown policing and cleanup costs, estimated to be about $174,000 annually.
That motion resulted in a failing 6-6 tie. Coun. Lise Burcher was absent.
“Nothing is going to change,” Bell said. “The task force recommends if the retailers don’t like windows broken then they should put security cameras and lights in front of their stores. Who’s going to pay for that?” he asked.
He thinks the onus should be on the city to improve the overall situation, and suggested that Guelph look toward other municipalities.
In Barrie, for example, there is a graduated business licensing structure, which means bigger bars pay more. The city is able to recover costs associated with inspections and increased call volumes experienced by police and emergency services.
“We’re on a collision course here,” Bell said. “From the very beginning, my argument is we have to resolve the hooliganism first, otherwise we’ll have conflicts in the future and the whole strategy for improving the downtown will fail,” he said.
But David Corks, Guelph’s downtown economic development manager, said providing incentives to developers through the community-improvement plan will ensure more residential moves forward. “We’ve seen it happen in other cities. You just need to get going,” he said.
The issue of cost recovery in the downtown cropped up last June when council’s finance committee passed a resolution directing staff to come back with options about how to recoup costs associated with policing and cleanup in the core. Staff reported back this month, recommending a co-operative approach focused on cost reduction rather than recovery.
Mayor Karen Farbridge said she supported that direction.
“Having a vibrant downtown entertainment scene is what a lot of downtowns would covet,” she said. “So when you have a vibrant downtown after 6 p.m., it’s going to come with some issues. So you work to mitigate those issues. (The solution) is not to have a dead downtown after 6 p.m.”