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During their May 7 Special Meeting, the Town of Greater Napanee Council voted against staff’s recommendation to cancel all liquor licenses it holds for town facilities. Instead, council approved a motion to keep their liquor licenses and promote special occasion permits.
Council did approve staff’s recommendation to bring forward a revised Municipal Alcohol Policy that focuses on the use of special occasion permits when alcohol is to be consumed on Town premises and provides clear, written direction to staff on how to manage issues of permitted and non-permitted alcohol use on Town property.
CAO Matthew Grant pointed to the need for an updated policy, stating the current one has not been updated since 1999. This, as Grant noted, is an important tool to “limit liability.”
“As of last year, we host about 60 events annually with the majority being in the Best and Bash Arena,” he said. “We make a total combined profit, excluding the hall rental fee, of $17,000 on liquor sales.”
Activities relating to the sale of alcohol, as with any organization, are governed by the Liquor Control Act as well as Superior Court rulings.
Providing context for the recommendations, Grant noted surrounding municipalities do not run their own bar.
Councillor Angela Hicks requested verification from clerk Jessica Walters as to the cost of residents acquiring a Special Occasions Permit so that they may serve their own alcohol.
“For a sale permit, the cost is $150. There is a reduced $50 fee if there is a ‘no sale permit’. You’re just serving the alcohol to guests at no cost,” Walters replied.
-In other news, Council received a staff report on the complaint reporting system E11. In it, Grant provided council with two options to help improve this system.
They subsequently approved Option One to allow for the production of a monthly report on E11 that provides aggregate information on all complaints, including complaint types and the geographic location where the complaint was made or was about.
E11 is the complaint mechanism through which individuals and can register issues and, hopefully, see them resolved. This system was put in place in 2023 to replace the Report an Issue System.
Staff will now provide a monthly summary report of all complaints received. This summary will include the type of complaint received and the geographic information associated with the complaint that was provided to the Town at the time of submission.
Grant noted this report was brought forward as several councillors expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of specificity in the current E11 complaint system.
“Members of council indicated on more than one occasion that when complaints are received it just states there was an issue but lacks specifics,” said Grant.
Option Two, which was not recommended, would require several provisions to be met for individual Councillors to be made aware of individual complaints within their ward. These provisions include:
∙ Amending the Corporate Complaints Policy to reflect that the practice of providing a summary complaint report when it is received and when the matter is closed is an expectation under policy
∙ Making a one-time investment of up to $20,000 (depending on the degree of reporting capabilities) to update the software system to allow a separate reporting mechanism to take place in tandem with but separate from the complainant’s information. This would require staff to manually draft a summary of the complaint, excluding information restricted by privacy legislation, which would occur immediately following the receipt and initial review of qualified complaints (the complainant requested it and is not a by-law enforcement matter).
∙ Ensure there are appropriate processes and protocols in place to ensure each staff member involved in E11 complaint resolution is familiar with expectations and executes on them.
Hicks, among others, noted she was opposed to Option Two, citing the price.
“I’m not in favour of spending $20,000 to upgrade a system I don’t, personally, think we need,” stated Hicks.
Meanwhile, councillor Dave Pinnell Jr. noted that “it’s very important for a councillor to know what is going on in their ward and that’s an expectation of the voter.”
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