In the story ‘Business explains lack of payment’ published in the Lakes District News’ July 12 issue, Wayne Brown, owner of Process 4 circle arts Gallery, told council that he had withheld his business licence fee payments to “get their attention.”
According to Brown, renting out the Lakes Artisan Centre’s building below market rate harms local competitors such as himself.
The village has been renting out the building to the Lakes Artisan Cooperative since 2010, charging $500 per month - which includes electricity, natural gas, water, sewer, garbage, snow removal and landscaping.
The Lakes Artisan Centre, as a cooperative, holds only one business licence. Councillor Kelly Holliday said that perhaps this isn’t fair to other businesses in Burns Lake.
“Does that mean that artisans can have 15 businesses in town and have only one business licence? Perhaps we should review our business licence terms and what’s required,” she said.
Holliday said the village should consider charging a higher rate for cooperatives’ business licences.
“Maybe our farmers market will become a cooperative one day and there will be 20 venues there and one business licence,” she said. “If we’re going to have cooperative types of businesses maybe we should have a separate type of licence.”
Councillor Michael Riis-Christianson had a different opinion.
“I know from the point of view of talking with some of the artisans that most of them are not making a huge amount of money there, and it gives them an opportunity to make some revenue,” he said. “I do think it’s important to support that.”
“Communities that have been successful at re-tuning their economies, a lot of them go very strongly into the arts and recreation,” he continued. “Getting artisans out of the community and into the main street makes people stop.”
“We could be doing a lot more as a community to support artisans and I’d like to see that section of our economy grow because I think it has some potential,” he added.
Councillor Susan Schienbein said that although she agrees that supporting the arts community is a good tool for re-diversifying the economy, she doesn’t believe that the village will be able to find a common ground on this issue.
“I’m sympathetic to Mr. Brown, but I don’t know how we can fix this,” she said. “I don’t know what that fine line is in making sure that we’re not providing a perceived advantage and yet supporting that sector.”
Before renting out the building, the village sought a legal opinion which stated that accepting an offer that is lower than the average commercial rental rates in the community does not cause the village to be in contravention of the Community Charter.
In addition to paying rent and selling local artisan crafts and arts, the agreement between the village and the Lakes Artisan Cooperative states that the cooperative will provide services such as “preparation and dissemination of tourist and local artisan promotional material for visitors.”
The issue of unpaid business licences will be brought back to a future council meeting as per Process 4 circle arts Gallery’s request.
