Local Politicians unanimously endorsed a private application downtown on McLean Street at the Billy Barker Casino, as well as a government application for Malcolm Street in the West Park Mall.
Both meet zoning requirements and weren’t met with any public objections.
The recommendations will now go to the Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch, and then both applications will be in the LRB’s hands.
Kevin Satterfield, the Director of Store Operations with the BC Liquor Distribution Branch, was in the gallery at last night’s Council meeting, and provided the following update on when the government run store might open…
“The process that we’ll go through after this is confirming the lease, once it’s officially signed, and then we start the tenant improvements which we anticipate to be close between March 15th and April 15th. At that point in time we have a 30-week process before we actually open the store. We can shorten that a little bit but our critical path on the project side of it is approximately 14 weeks as it relates to the hiring or recruiting that we do within the community, and the enhanced security screening that we do for each of the individuals that get hired into the store.”
As for how many people will be employed at the store, Satterfield also addressed that issue last night…
“The store is the same size as the Kamloops store, 3,000 square feet, and in that store we usually would plan between 12 and 16 people. I haven’t done the actual sales numbers in order to figure out what the dollars per square foot will be, but I am anticipating something along the same lines, approximately one full-time General Manager, two Assistant Managers, six full-time people, three part-time people, and auxiliaries.”
And finally, Satterfield was also asked about potential supply problems…
“We are the wholesale distributor as well as the retailer at the same time. We also wholesale for all privates. We have our Richmond distribution centre of 70 thousand square feet that has a very good supply right now. We have 42 current LP (Limited Partnership) contracts in place, which is far more than anybody else in Canada. And therefore we have a good lead time of products still coming in, and with the anticipated regulations of edibles and concentrates, we anticipate that there will be a steady supply going right through the rest of the year.”
Tanya Turner, the City’s Director of Development Services, says she is confident that Quesnel will have one of the first ten stores in the province.
Right now there are a few in the Lower Mainland, and one in Kamloops.