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By Justin Goulet

Town of Raymond to gather public feedback on restaurant licensing

Feb 23, 2022 | 11:49 AM

RAYMOND, AB – Restaurants in Raymond could be able to serve alcohol in the future.

Since being founded in 1901, the town has been a dry community. This means establishments like restaurants have not been able to serve alcohol to their patrons. According to Director of Community and Corporate Development, Greg Robinson, this has been a topic of discussion for the last few years, particularly around election time.

Because of this, the town is set to start a public engagement process to gather residents’ thoughts on amending the Land Use Bylaw to allow licensed restaurants in the community. Robinson noted the goal is to not establish separate liquor stores, but solely to find out if residents would want restaurants to be able to serve alcohol.

He said, “I think what council decided was rather than wait for an application to come in from the AGLC [Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis], which would be the process for a dry community, we thought we’d be more proactive and also be able to take some time in sorting out for council what the best course of action is when an application will be received, rather than just wait and be reactive.”

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT PROCESS

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The engagement process will take place over the next seven weeks. There will be two public engagement events at the Raymond Seniors Centre on March 9 and 23.

Residents can get involved online as well via the town’s website. Additionally, the town will conduct a community input survey from March 24 to April 7 online.

Robinson said, “council wants as much public input as possible and they think it’s incredibly important to hear from the public on this matter.”

“Nothing’s pre-decided, nothing’s pre-determined, this is merely an ask because it’s been a popular point of discussion for several years now.”

He remarked that, “there are people with strong viewpoints on either side of this situation that need to be considered and they want to consider them in that process.”

DRY COMMUNITIES

Robinson noted other communities in southern Alberta that are considered dry, including Stirling and Cardston.

“Those are the ones that are certainly the well-known ones in our area.” He noted, though, that “it’s definitely seeing some evolution within our region.”

Robinson did mention that there is a “grey area” when it comes to dry communities.

He said, “municipalities don’t really have a lot of powers when it comes to alcohol and sales. That’s strictly a provincial matter and so, places like golf courses and even, probably some restaurants that are in the south, they’ve been able to apply for a special events license and serve [alcohol], but they always have.”

“It’s been a bit of a work-around around the legislation and the restrictive covenants because they’re not being issued a business license – it’s an event, kind of a one-off thing. In some cases, like the golf courses, perhaps they’ve even just applied for special events permits for the whole summer.”

Robinson added, “there’s always been a bit of a work-around but really, there has not been the opportunity to sell liquor as part of your business licensing in the Town of Raymond at all, so that’s basically the question that’s on the table, is should that be opened or released, instead of having to go through special permits.”

He said an issue like this can divide communities at times, but, “we [the town and council] certainly want to make sure that people are respectful of viewpoints that are not their own and we hope and feel that Raymond is up for that, having conversations but being respectful.”