CANMORE – Canmore businesses will soon be expected to have closed doors during the late fall and winter months.
Town council approved the new closed door bylaw in early July, which will take effect from the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving Day weekend and the final Friday of each April, in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the community.
“It seems to be a relatively easy thing to reduce GHG emissions and be more energy efficient,” said Mayor Sean Krausert. “I don’t see a good reason why doors should be open when it’s cooler outside and I like that it aligns with the Banff bylaw for consistency, ease of understanding and ease of enforcement.”
The bylaw, however, will have an exception when the temperature rises above 10 Celsius in an Environment Canada weather forecast.
In recent months, an educational component was attempted by municipal enforcement to encourage businesses to have closed doors. But with some continuing to have their doors open, Town staff ultimately recommended the bylaw be created to ensure compliance.
Both Couns. Jeff Hilstad and Wade Graham voiced displeasure the educational aspect didn’t work, but expressed hope the bylaw would help. A minimum fine for breaking the bylaw is $250.
“I hoped for better in the education realm. I’m glad we did the education,” Graham said.
Town staff will continue with “proactive education” messaging to the business community as Thanksgiving Day approaches.
“There’s multiple reasons a door might be open – people entering, exiting, deliver happening, an emergency – we don’t want to assume the door is open for the sake of being open,” said Caitlin Miller, the Town’s manager of protective services.
The bylaw aligns with the Town of Banff’s own closed door bylaw, which was approved in 2022 with the same cut-off temperature of 10 C.
Since introducing its bylaw, the Town of Banff has yet to issue a fine and has seen a high level of compliance from businesses.
“Administration felt that being consistent with the Town of Banff bylaw would be easier for businesses operating in both communities to follow the bylaw,” said Miller.
While air curtains have been expressed to be a potential mitigation effort for having doors open, Town staff noted they still use energy.
“Our stance is air curtains are still an energy use,” said Caitlin van Gaal, the Town’s supervisor of environment and sustainability. “You’re still running a system to blow air down, so you can have that separation of indoor versus outdoor. The intention of this is to reduce energy waste. I would say closing your door is a better option than an air curtain.”
The Bow Valley Clean Air Society appeared as a delegation in July 2022 to request a closed door bylaw be implemented in Canmore.
Town staff were asked to look at its potential and whether it’d be effective in the community.
A staff report noted with the Town having issued a climate emergency and having a Climate Action Plan, the closed door bylaw aligns with council direction, its strategic plan and the Climate Emergency Declaration.
Town staff met with Tourism Canmore Kananaskis, Bow Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown BIA in August 2022, which led to messaging information to encourage businesses to close doors.
In 29 foot audits between September 2022 and April 2023, open doors were recorded 503 times but “the number of open doors strongly correlates with warmer temperatures.”
However, with businesses continuing to keep doors open after messaging, Town staff recommended the bylaw be brought in.
A staff report estimated GHG emissions due to doors being open in Canmore are about 32 tonnes a year. Town staff also conducted 11 surveys on foot between March 3-22 and 184 instances of doors being open were recorded.
Town council also approved a change in funding for the ongoing work by municipal staff to update and combine the environmental guiding documents.
The work will see the 2010 Environmental Sustainability Action Plan, 2016 Climate Change Adaptation Background and Resilience Report and 2018 Climate Action Plan combined into a single document.
The funding request would see $80,000 come from grant funding from Municipal Climate Change Action Centre’s (MCCAC) climate resilience capacity building program to increase the project’s budget to $211,000. Council had previously approved a budget of $150,000, meaning the remainder would come from the Town’s sustainability reserve.
However, it would result in $19,000 in savings for the Town due to the grant.
Town staff applied for the MCCAC grant in February and selected Sustainable Solutions Group as the consultant to create the single guiding Climate Emergency Action Plan document in March. The Town was awarded the grant in May, which allowed for the scope of the project to have more in-depth work for climate risks and hazards as well as a more detailed carbon budget.
The project was intended to return to council in January 2024, but the enhanced scope and the project’s funding have it more likely to come back in March 2024.
In addition to the closed door bylaw, the Community Standards Bylaw was amended to give an exemption for air conditioner and heat pump units in the noise section to go up to 70 decibels.
Miller said the majority of air conditioners run between 40-60 decibels, but the municipal enforcement department does receive numerous complaints and spends a significant amount of time investigating noise from units.
“The overall health benefit of being able to access cool and clean air will reduce mortality and morbidity rates as we continue to feel the impacts of climate change by way of increasing incidents of heat and wildfire smoke,” she said.
In January 2022, Town staff proposed air conditioning units go from having a side yard setback of one-metre instead of none. Council defeated the proposal, but in April 2022, the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board (SDAB) permitted the setback with conditions for a condo development.
A subsequent SDAB hearing June 23 also heard on a side yard setback and noise issues. However, despite taking place, the hearing needed to be held again due to not all information being available in the agenda. A date has yet to be scheduled for the second hearing.
For closed doors, though, with everyone needing to abide by the same rules, there’s hope the bylaw will have a high level of compliance.
“When this is the rule for everyone, it creates a standard. No one business is thinking ‘will I leave my door open so people think I’m open’ and it’s also an energy savings,” said Coun. Tanya Foubert. “There will be money saved as well as greenhouse gases saved.”
