A10 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, April 16, 1997

_TERRACE STANDARD,

Business REVIEW

= Foom tax not dead yet

About

Stores

set to go

THE CONTRACT for
construction of the Real Ca-
nadian Whoksale Club
store in Terrace has been

awarded to Action Con-—

struction Lid. of Kam-
loops.

The city has issued a
building permit — the final
hurdle for construction: of
the $1.9 million, ~ 36,000-
square-foot outlet’ on the
south side of Keith Ave. be-
hind Kermodei Trading.

Meanwhile Canadian
Tire Corporation was last
week issued a development
permit for its 46,000 square
foot department store at
Hwy 16 West and Brooks
St

Building plans have been
submitted to city hall and
project planners have indi-
cated they are aiming to
start construction by May
Ist

‘overwhelmingly

_ CITY COUNCIL is divided

on whether to ram through a
two-per-cent hotel room tax
to bankroll tourism promo-
tion here.

Cily councillors Linda
Hawes and Rich McDaniel
have came out in favour of
going ahead with the tax —
despite’ heavy opposition
from hotel operators,

**T think we should just do
it”’ Hawes told fellow
councillors last Monday.

That would mean overrid-
ing the objections of the lo-
cal hotel operators, who
opposed
the idea at a meeting in Jan-

‘uary.

Both McDaniel and

Hawes claim many hoteliers

were misinformed about the
proposal and that they need
to ‘‘better understand’’ the
need for the tax.

Hawes said vocal ele-
ments in the hotel industry
stirred up opposition and

Linda Hawes

that she believes overall
there is “grudging support”
for the plan.

“IT do not understand why
certain individuals are so
adamantly against it,’” she
said. ‘It’s not a tax out of
our community. It’s a tax on
travellers and it’s an invest-
ment in our future.’’

City council has returned

to the idea of the two-per-
cent tax after city lawyers
concluded an extra fee on
business licences to support
tourism would violate the
Municipal Act.

**We have no other ave-
nues available to us,”
Hawes added.

Councillor David Hull
agreed that the tax appears
o be the best option, but
said he’d have to see a
change in sentiment among
hotel owners before he'd
support the idea.

“Dm not keen om ram-
ming through a tax that’s
not common in the province
and not popular here,’’ he
said. ‘“‘There’s a petition
signed by 85 per cent of the
accomodations industry.
Government regulations say
the accomodalions industry
must be on side, When this
arrives on cabinet’s table,
it's going to be a little hard
for them to put it in.”

By Thursday, Hawes had
retreated somewhat, saying
she ‘‘will not support an in-
iliative to simply ram it
through.”

She said some further ef-
forts will have to be made to
get the industry on side, but
said it would be “‘premature

to outline our plan ‘of attack .

right now.”

McDaniel, however, said
there’s no reason to wail.

“T think we should just

send them a letter telling
them what we're going lo
do and why we're going to
do it and go for it,”’ he said.
“T don’t think we have any
option.’
- The tax would generate an
estimated $60,000 and help
the newly formed Terrace
Tourism Council carry outa
$100,000-a-year tourism
promotion budget for the
city. The city wants to
reduce the $45,000-a-year it
presently spends.

Holiday openings option favoured

- -~ James W. Radelet
-RADELET & COMPANY tarisiers & sotcitors

Tax Law + Trusts *

Corporate & Commercial

1330 - 1075 Was! Geergla Street, Vancouver, B.C. VE 3C9

Phone: 604-689-0878

“Fax; 604-689-1386

The costs for Psychologica!
services are oHen cover

by extended health benelits.

Dr. Tom Strong
Registered Psychologist
Now Regularly Prattidny trom Mills
Memorial Hospital,

© Relationship & Family therapy
© Full Range of Individual Psythotheropy
© Teaining and Seminars
© Brief results oriented
© Chronic pain & illness consultations
Ask about the couples consultations.
for mora information or 10 book appointments ptease call:

1-800-456-7733

“BUSINESS CLASS”

COMPUTER SALES

tepals
* High end and
economy models

Beier. operal od

CALL 638-8808

® Sales, service and

® Locally owned ond

High End
Pentium 200
37 MB EDO Ram
31 GD Hard Drive
12 Spee Cl) Rom
32 Hsin Sound
33.6 Modens
17 S¥GA Mopar

Economy
Jemtium 164
FG Cag Hard Drove
56 MB Ram
RS peed C1 Ram
16 Bin Sound
IS" SVGA Monitor

$ 3509.00 3 17994H)

“Sorvice_tl's our goaland {nour name”

445GREIG AVENUE .- ...
TERRACE, BO'VEGiMa

4

MIKE SCOTT

Member of Parliament

keena

to be open,’’ Phillips added. ‘“We’re
saying they should be given the
choice.”

The argument behind it is that sum-

CHAMBER of Commerce officials
say their members are overwhelming-
ly in favour of being allowed to open
on holidays during the summer.

businesses to have the option of open-
ing on summer holidays.

“We will be taking that information
forward to city council,’’ Phillips said.

For Assistance

In other local development
action, Aqua Clear
Bottlers is about to start

construction of a new store ©

on Greig Ave, adjacent to
the Terrace Standard build-
ing.

And a development permit
has been issued for Progres-
sive Ventures plans to build
a new building adjacent to
Home MHardware. The
building will replace the old
Kondola’s building, which
Progressive Ventures’ Dave
McKeown says didn’t lend
itself well to renovation.

Home Hardware will oc-
cupy some pertion of the
new building, but exactly
how much is sot yet
determined,

Also going up now is the
new River Industries build-
ing at Keith Ave. and
Kalum St.

Building

plans spike

IF INDUSTRY troubles
have caused uncertainty in
Terrace the building inspec-
tion team at cily hall still
isn’t seeing much fallout.

The city issued building
permits worth $4.19 million
in March, bringing the year-
to-date total to $5.67 mil-
lion.

That’s only slightly below
the $5.87 million in permits
issued to the same point in
the record year of 1996.

Commercial construction
accounted for $2.77 million
of the March statistics, al-
most all of that attributable
to the Real Canadian
Wholesale Club-and River
Industries projects.

Eight more permits for
new houses came in last
month worth a total of $1.08
million.

Alcan to
sell Sno.net

Alcan is in the process of
selling off Sno.net — the
SOQ-subscriber service it
started toa provide Intervet
access in Kitimat.

Company spokesman Al-'

lan Hewitson said Alcan has
had discussions. © with

Okanagan Skeena.Group,

which operates OSG Inter-
active out of its cablevision,
radio and tclevision offices

Almost half of the membership
responded to a survey sent aut recent-
ly, and Chamber manager Bobbie
Phillips said the vast majority wanted

Labour Day.

The holidays in question are Vic-
toria Day, Canada Day, B.C. Day and

“"We’re not saying the stores have

mer holiday shopping is available in
other centres in the region, and Ter-

race could be losing out on tourist

traffic if it doesn’t do likewise.

1-800-661-2208
or 635-1601

SMARTLEASE:

| BUILT FOR DRIVERS |
SMARTLEASE OPTIONS!

MONTHLY
PAYMENT

DOWN-
PAYMENT

TOTAL
OBLIGATION

329

1,695

13,499

359

700

13,624

in Terrace. Nothing has ON
been finalized, however. 09, “AND: $350. accom 13 71 6
Repap 13,3 381
cou rted YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS: LEASE FOR TRANS SPORT 5A AS LIMIT OF 20,000KM. {O.08 PER EXCESS KILOMETER. DEALER
te " DESCRIBED, EXTRA COST FOR LUGGAGE RACK AND ALUMINUM MAY SELL/LEASE FOR LESS. OFFER MAY NOT BE COMBINED OR
A ‘“‘number'’ of com- WHEELS. LICENCE, INSURANCE AND TAXES NOT INCLUDED. USED WITH OTHER OFFERS, OFFER APPLIES TO NEW 1997 OR

panies have expressed inter-
est in buying Repap Enter-
prises or portions of its as-
sets, company officials say. .

But the company says it
wants to stick §~ with
proposals to sell or merge
the entire corporalion, rather
than break it up further.

The proposed merger of

Repap Enterprises ©. with
Montreal-based Averor
failed last month when

Avenor shareholders Voted —

the deal down.

LEASE PAYMENTS BASED ON 36 MONTH SMARTLEASE.
SECURITY DEPOSIT OF $400/ 425/ 450, “ANNUAL KILOMETER

DEMONSTRATOR MODELS. OAC. OFFER AVAILABLE IN BC ONLY,
SEE YOUR BEALER FOR CONDITIONS ANB DETAILS,