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A Kitsilano woman wants to know how extending closing times for restaurants fits in with the city's Project Civil City.
"With all of the trouble extended bar hours have caused downtown, you'd think they'd say, 'This isn't working,' and roll the hours back," said Celena Benndorf, co-founder of citizen group I-CARE, which lobbies for bylaw enforcement and increased public civility. "Instead they want to extend restaurant hours."
In December 2006, Mayor Sam Sullivan introduced the civil city initiative, which includes goals to eliminate the city's open drug market, homelessness and aggressive panhandling, as well as find ways to better deal with nuisance and annoyance complaints.
The city has created a draft policy in response to changes to the provincial bylaw governing liquor licences. Prior to 2002, the province offered seven types of liquor licence categories that included 19 licence classes. Now there are just two types--food-primary and liquor-primary. The change offers more flexibility when it comes to seating capacity of a licensed establishment and its hours of operation. To deal with the changes the city also had to rewrite its policy.
In response, the city set a 2 a.m. closing time for all restaurants and bars licensed after 2002.
Under the new draft policy, some bars would be able to extend their closing time to 3 a.m. Others would have to roll back their 2 a.m. closing time on weekdays to midnight.
The draft policy also allows for some licensed restaurants to now stay open, and serve liquor, later than they have in the past.
It all depends on where the restaurant or bar is located. The draft policy divides the city into seven sub-areas, with an establishment's location dictating its hours of operation. For example, a downtown restaurant would be allowed to remain open until 1:30 a.m., seven days a week, while a restaurant in a mixed-use area outside of the downtown core, such as Kitsilano, would have to close at 12 a.m. on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends.
A Facebook site called Stop Vancouver's Bedtime Police sprang up in response to the proposed changes. The site has attracted more than 1,400 members since its inception earlier this year.
Benndorf said that, at a June 24 meeting she attended, many restaurant owners argued for later closing times than those allowed in the draft policy. She's concerned the city will bow to pressure from business owners and allow restaurants in residential areas to remain open until 2 a.m. or later.
"I live in Kitsilano, and when we call the police because there's a bunch of loud drunkards causing trouble, we're told they don't have the resources to deal with it because they're too busy handling the partiers downtown," said Benndorf. "How are they going to handle late-night restaurants across the city?"
Lily Ford, the policy analyst for the city's licence office, said the city wants to create a policy that will fit within the new provincial regulations, and that works for Vancouver. She adds that restaurant owners can apply for extended hours, which will be considered on a case-by-case basis. "The provincial rules allow restaurant owners to apply to extend their hours until 4 a.m., with a resolution from the city," said Ford. "But so far we have not issued any resolutions."
Ford said a series of meetings was held in an attempt to gather input from residents, bar and restaurant owners. Besides meetings, the city has posted separate online surveys for residents, bar and restaurant owners. A "quantitative" survey will also be conducted across the city--either by phone or mail.
"We've received a lot of letters and phone calls about the draft policy, but we'd like to hear from more people," said Ford. "I'd like to encourage everyone to look at our website and fill out the surveys."
The draft policy and link to the surveys is available at vancouver.ca/commsvcs/licandinsp/licences/liquor/policy.htm.
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