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Q: What does the Glebe Business Improvement Area want?
A: Next week it will ask the city to allow its retail businesses to stay open on statutory holidays. The law allows a city to permit this if the retail area is within two kilometres of a tourist attraction — in this case including the Rideau Canal, a UNESCO heritage site, and the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Q: What’s the reason?
A: “The businesses that are struggling the most are the ones that are currently not allowed to remain open” on holidays, says Andrew Peck, executive director of the Glebe BIA. He notes that online shopping continues on holidays while Glebe retailers must shut down. The 1991 law predates the Internet.
“I feel there’s no harm in putting forth and application and creating a discussion and debate around the issue,” he said.
“A lot of ‘common pause’ days (holidays) are on long weekends.” He says people already come to the Glebe area on holidays for sports and skating and movies, “and a lot of our members said it’s hard: There’s traffic and we can’t access that traffic. And it’s hard to watch your best customers go someplace else.
“Winterlude’s last day was on Family Day, for example.” Stores were closed despite having crowds all around.
Q: What businesses would be affected?
A: The Glebe BIA runs along Bank Street from the Queensway to the Bank Street bridge, with some smaller areas such as Pretoria Street. Restaurants can already open on holidays so the change would only affect stores.
Q: What counts as a tourist attraction?
A: Ontario regulations require that all the retail businesses that stay open on a holiday must be within two kilometres of a tourist attraction. And that can be: “natural attractions or outdoor recreational attractions; historical attractions; and cultural, multi-cultural or educational attractions.”
If the tourist attraction is seasonal, then businesses have to justify how this fits with their wish to stay open. This is not likely an issue with the canal or museum.
As well, at least 25 per cent of the retail businesses in the area must be “directly associated with the tourist attraction or rely on tourists visiting the attraction for business on a holiday.”
All criteria for operating near a tourist attraction are online here.
Q: If the Glebe BIA gets permission, does holiday shopping spread across the city?
A: That’s unlikely, says the area’s councillor, David Chernushenko.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they (other areas) felt, ‘Hey, if they can get that status, why not us too?’ ” he said.
The catch is whether other neighbourhoods can claim to have a major tourist attraction within two kilometres, he said. “I doubt it would be the case for many BIAs.”
There are other pressures to open on holidays. Whole Foods at Lansdowne Park stayed open on Good Friday, causing some people to protest. Police laid charges.
Q: What does the councillor think of the proposal?
“I’m of two minds,” Chernushenko said. “I kind of liked Sunday being a down day,” and now that stores all open Sunday, “I kind of feel as a society we’ve lost something.”
But he said he understands that stores face stiff competition and there are many holidays when people are already walking past and looking in the windows but not able to shop.
tspears@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
A: Next week it will ask the city to allow its retail businesses to stay open on statutory holidays. The law allows a city to permit this if the retail area is within two kilometres of a tourist attraction — in this case including the Rideau Canal, a UNESCO heritage site, and the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Q: What’s the reason?
A: “The businesses that are struggling the most are the ones that are currently not allowed to remain open” on holidays, says Andrew Peck, executive director of the Glebe BIA. He notes that online shopping continues on holidays while Glebe retailers must shut down. The 1991 law predates the Internet.
“I feel there’s no harm in putting forth and application and creating a discussion and debate around the issue,” he said.
“A lot of ‘common pause’ days (holidays) are on long weekends.” He says people already come to the Glebe area on holidays for sports and skating and movies, “and a lot of our members said it’s hard: There’s traffic and we can’t access that traffic. And it’s hard to watch your best customers go someplace else.
“Winterlude’s last day was on Family Day, for example.” Stores were closed despite having crowds all around.
Q: What businesses would be affected?
A: The Glebe BIA runs along Bank Street from the Queensway to the Bank Street bridge, with some smaller areas such as Pretoria Street. Restaurants can already open on holidays so the change would only affect stores.
Q: What counts as a tourist attraction?
A: Ontario regulations require that all the retail businesses that stay open on a holiday must be within two kilometres of a tourist attraction. And that can be: “natural attractions or outdoor recreational attractions; historical attractions; and cultural, multi-cultural or educational attractions.”
If the tourist attraction is seasonal, then businesses have to justify how this fits with their wish to stay open. This is not likely an issue with the canal or museum.
As well, at least 25 per cent of the retail businesses in the area must be “directly associated with the tourist attraction or rely on tourists visiting the attraction for business on a holiday.”
All criteria for operating near a tourist attraction are online here.
Q: If the Glebe BIA gets permission, does holiday shopping spread across the city?
A: That’s unlikely, says the area’s councillor, David Chernushenko.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they (other areas) felt, ‘Hey, if they can get that status, why not us too?’ ” he said.
The catch is whether other neighbourhoods can claim to have a major tourist attraction within two kilometres, he said. “I doubt it would be the case for many BIAs.”
There are other pressures to open on holidays. Whole Foods at Lansdowne Park stayed open on Good Friday, causing some people to protest. Police laid charges.
Q: What does the councillor think of the proposal?
“I’m of two minds,” Chernushenko said. “I kind of liked Sunday being a down day,” and now that stores all open Sunday, “I kind of feel as a society we’ve lost something.”
But he said he understands that stores face stiff competition and there are many holidays when people are already walking past and looking in the windows but not able to shop.
tspears@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
