Future of Vancouver Brewing Debated at City Hall

Vancouver BC – April 17th 2013

Former CAMRA BC – Vancouver Chapter President Paddy Treavor recently met up with NPA Councillor George Affleck at Vancouver City Hall to discuss the fact that Vancouver City Council is denying the applications of many local breweries to open “Beer lounges” despite the Provincial Government green-lighting them.
Many Vancouver Craft-Brewers are in a Catch 22 situation, the City will generally only allow them to be built in industrial-zoned areas, but will automatically deny any Beer-Lounge applications for industrial-zoned areas.

A second layer of red-tape from the city demands that they also apply for a liquor primary licence – which is notoriously difficult to get at the best of times and costs a huge amount of money. This demand from the city is actually not a provincial requirement; the recent changes in the BC law state that the Beer Lounge Licence is just an endorsement-extension on the breweries’ existing manufacturing licence.

This is a typical example of the No Fun City Council making it as difficult as possible for craft-breweries in Vancouver, while at the same time paying lip-service to supporting the craft-beer community. It’s also forcing new Breweries out of the city where other municipalities are very welcoming to this growing craft-industry which brings in jobs and tourism.

Mr. Affleck has tabled a motion to be debated and voted on next week (Tuesday 23rd or Wednesday 24th April) that takes a big step forward, he’s asking the licensing and zoning departments to find out what’s needed to fix the problems:
“Current City of Vancouver regulations do not allow for brewery and distillery operations to offer customers samples and purchasing options. I’m asking staff to come back to Council with recommendations on how we can change that” says Affleck.

If the motion passes then soon he’ll be able to table a second motion to fix the problems using the recommendations.

Mayor Gregor Robertson quickly took to twitter in support of the motion “I expect city staff to report to Council in May with new brewery lounge regulations.” he posted on his official account, which is encouraging – although are more regulations what’s really needed?

“On-site beer lounges could really open up Vancouver for smaller nano-style breweries to open up and sell their beer directly to consumers from the actual point of production. This in turn could be a boon for local consumers and beer tourists alike, giving Vancouver the opportunity to become something of a Portland North.” Said Paddy Treavor in his Van East Beer Blog.

Whether you can come to City Hall or not you can still get involved as we will be arranging a Twitter campaign in the lead up to the debate showing our support of the motion to the Mayor, and key City Councillors (listed below). CAMRA BC also encourages everyone who is interested to email the mayor and city council with your views, the more people who do the better. We had an amazing response to the Growler campaign and we’re seeing some great movement there, so we know that craft-beer supporters are passionate about making political change. Let’s make our presence felt and stand up for what we want instead of just bemoaning our situation.

If you want to be involved please contact Paddy Treavor or Adam Chatburn for more information and keep checking Paddy’s Van East Beer Blog and CAMRA Vancouver’s website for updates.

Mayor Robertson:     gregor.robertson@vancouver.ca  @mayorgregor

Clr. George Affleck:  clraffleck@vancouver.ca      @george_affleck

Clr Heather Deal:      clrdeal@vancouver.ca   @vanrealdeal

City of Vancouver:    @cityofvancouver