City aims to restore marina’s liquor licence
In a bid to help a private partner get back its liquor licence for Skaha Marina and salvage a plan to upgrade the facility, the City of Penticton has applied to the B.C. government for a two-year lease and tenure on a portion of lakefront there.
The strip of Crown land in question stretches from the water’s edge to about the middle of the existing building on the site, where Trio Marine Group has a tentative deal with the city to expand and upgrade the marina and onshore facilities.
The rest of the site is owned by the city, which has a licence of occupation for the Crown portion that it subsequently assigned to Trio, but liquor licence holders are required by provincial regulations to have either a lease or ownership of their premises.
That technicality last year prompted the cancellation of the liquor licence under which Trio served alcohol at the restaurant for the past two summers.
Trio didn’t respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
City lands administrator Peter Wallace said the liquor licence is crucial for Trio to turn a profit and come up with $1.5 million to upgrade the site as required by terms of a proposed 29-year lease that would start in 2018.
“It keeps all of the bunch of dominoes in play,” explained Wallace.
“Their (long-term) deal falls apart if they can’t keep it together for two years until the end of the (shortterm) lease, and part of their plan was the liquor licence contributing some to their profitability.”
Wallace emphasized the city’s tenure application, which was filed April 20, is purely administrative in nature.
“Nothing gets changed. There’s no additional work or anything physical taking place. It’s just paperwork to regularize things,” he said, adding the city is simply doing everything it can to meet its overarching goal of getting Skaha Marina upgraded at no cost to taxpayers.
Comments on the application will be accepted until June 19, after which the B.C. government will begin considering the matter.
Wallace said provincial policy calls for a decision within six months of an application being filed, although he hopes one comes quicker so, if approved, Trio can get its liquor licence back and capitalize on at least part of the summer tourist season.
The glitch that cost Trio its original liquor licence was discovered by the late Nelson Meikle, who died May 16 and left behind a group called Penticton Citizens First to continue his fight against the city’s deals with Trio.
Meikle’s group is now encouraging people to oppose the city’s tenure application to choke off one of Trio’s revenue streams.
“The main objective of this whole deal for us — and me in particular — is to get Trio out of there,” said Penticton Citizens First member Peter Osborne.
“We intend to continue doing that and to interfere and interrupt in whatever way possible.”
Osborne said he’d prefer to see the city get rid of the marina entirely and replace it with new park space and enhanced boat launch facilities to encourage day use only of Skaha Lake.