La Ronge liquor outlets say bylaw vote will likely lead to layoffs

Several liquor establishments in La Ronge say they expect to issue layoff notices in the New Year.

A town bylaw reducing their operating hours is expected to pass Wednesday night that would force lounges, taverns and liquor retail stores to open later in the day and close earlier.

Local bars say that would force them to reduce staff, with at least two of them expecting as many as five layoffs each.

Tania Colbert, who runs the Northland Motor Hotel in downtown La Ronge, said the bylaw will cost her business 299 hours in January alone.

Colbert said the bar in her business would be open three hours less Monday through Saturday, and five fewer hours on Sundays and statutory holidays. The off-sale outlet would be open six hours less on all days of the week.

"In a town that people have a hard time finding work, it's not good," she said.

Colbert also said that liquor establishments were open to testing an hours reduction, but on a smaller scale.

"Why don't we try an hour? Closing an hour earlier to see what the effect is," she said. "You know what I mean? Just to give it a try."

The bylaw is one of 49 policy options town council is considering as part of a regional community alcohol management plan (CAMP).

Town council to track results

Councillor Jordan McPhail said the alcohol-related policy options that are adopted would be rolled out in a series of bylaws.

McPhail was once opposed to the strategy, but said he changed his mind when council stopped talking about closing bars on social benefit days.

"And I thought that was a little bit, you know, parental and patriarchal towards a certain socio-economic class and I didn't think that that was fair," he said. "I think if we're going to be governing as we should, we govern all people of the municipality."

He said they will be watching the number of alcohol-related emergency room visits, domestic assaults and missed school days.

"If we put in these regulations now and we don't see positive results, that's something we can look at as repealing the bylaw," he said. "You know, that's the beauty of governing. As things change and as information comes in, you're able to amend and repeal the things you put in place."

Plebiscite abandoned, citing cost and survey results

Colbert is critical town residents weren't allowed to vote on the issue.

McPhail said town councillors voted in favour of a plebiscite earlier in the year. However, they abandoned that plan after learning how much it would cost. A community survey also indicated "overwhelming support" for the policy options.

He said council decided the survey results were enough of a confidence vote to move forward.

The Lac La Ronge Region CAMP committee surveyed 483 area residents in 2017 and found that 76 per cent of respondents believed off-sale liquor outlets should close earlier than 3:00 a.m.

The committee also said 69 per cent of respondents indicated the hours of liquor sales in the region should be decreased.

Colbert commended town council for identifying a problem, but said "they're going about it wrong" — adding that bringing in additional counsellors and establishing a wet house would be a start.

"It just seems unfair," she said. "They're not getting to the root cause of any of these problems. Closing down hours isn't going to help."

McPhail said the bylaw itself won't solve the problem. It has to be part of a multi-faceted approach.

He said the next step would be "putting our money behind our word" and rolling out youth programming in the first six months of 2019.

If it passes, the bylaw would take effect Jan. 1.