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Banff looks at closed door regulation

Banff’s retailers may be forced to close their doors in winter if Banff’s politicians move ahead with strict environmental legislation in the national park townsite.

Banff’s retailers may be forced to close their doors in winter if Banff’s politicians move ahead with strict environmental legislation in the national park townsite.

Council has directed administration to bring back proposed regulation for closing doors in winter – aimed at reducing energy consumption and generation of greenhouse gas emissions – for their consideration and debate by September.

They acknowledged that leaving doors open brings noticeably more people in off the sidewalk into businesses, but some councillors were concerned about the number of complaints they get about this environmentally unfriendly practice.

“This is not something that will benefit from a public education campaign because we know businesses see more people come in if their doors are open,” said Councillor Leslie Taylor at a meeting Monday (Jan. 23).

“If we’re interested in this, we need some sort of regulatory language, otherwise some people will comply, some won’t and they won’t have a level playing field and it won’t be fair.”

Counc. Stavros Karlos was the only councillor opposed to considering regulations, saying he hoped rising energy costs would be enough to motivate people to close their doors voluntarily.

“I’m not comfortable going into another area of regulation, especially since we’ve just recently dealt with outdoor retailing,” he said.

Kees Vanderlee, owner of A Bit of Banff and Sleeping Buffalo, said he can see both sides of the debate, but indicated he was opposed to more regulation.

“I would hate to see them start to regulate this. I feel they shouldn’t be telling me or anyone we should open or close our doors,” he said.

“I think a lot of retailers have gone to closing their doors more often than they did in the past. I have signs that go on my door, saying our doors may be closed to save energy, but we’re open, which I am using much more than I have in the past.”

Vanderlee said such regulation, if approved, could also hurt local businesses, especially in light of council’s recent prohibition on outdoor retailing on the sidewalk.

“I know that a lot of people are not doing fantastic in terms of business right now, and this might hurt people as well,” he said.

“I think you’ll probably see a lot of people aren’t too happy about this.”

According to a staff report, a number of businesses located in the downtown core choose to leave their exterior doors open during winter months in order to entice customers into the store.

The report said the municipality regularly receives complaint letters and website action requests about this environmentally unfriendly practice from visitors.

Many of the submissions note that allowing this practice does not match with their vision of a sustainable national park community or the town’s adopted policies. For example, an environment goal in Banff’s community plan is “to be an environmental role model for communities around the world” and to “minimize energy consumption across the community.”

The report said efforts to encourage a voluntary closure, in consultation with the Small Business Association of Banff, were unsuccessful.

“Businesses have stated that to comply would put them at a competitive disadvantage if the doors of other businesses are allowed to remain open,” said the report.

Councillor Grant Canning said he wanted to look into the issue further out of fairness to all businesses.

“As long as everyone plays by the same rules, and if all businesses are closing their doors at -15 C, then it’s a level playing field,” he said.


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