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PRINCE GEORGE
Citizen
Serving the Central Interior since 1916
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by KAREN KWAN Citizen staff
The abrupt closure Thursday of the 100-room Yellowhead Inn over “financial difficulties” has left a number of businesses and groups who rent space at the hotel in limbo.
McCloud Nine On Central restaurant, the beer and wine store and Rendezvous Coiffures hair salon were forced to dose their doors as well, and the NAw Caledonia Rotary Club and the Silver Tip Archery Club are looking for new homes. Some people who were affected said they expected to hear by the middle of the month if the hotel would be reopening.
The dosure is disrupting plans for the B.C. indoor archery championship, which was scheduled to be hdd in the archery facility in the hotel’s basement later this month, said Kent Maitland, vice-president of the Silver Tip Archery Club. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. We have to try to find another facility. People are coming from all over B.C. for the tournament,” he said. The dub has rented space in the Yellowhead Inn for the past 12 years and uses the archery facility throughout the week. Maitland, who emphasized the dub is still operating although it’s currently homeless, said about 250 archers are affected by the dosure — induding 150 youths.
The B.C. indoor championship was also held at the Yellowhead Inn last year, injecting dollars into the local economy, Majdand said. “There’s definitely going to be An effect on the , Citizen photo by Brent Braaten Sheldon Plneo from Shoppers Wholesale removes items from the Yellowhead Inn on Friday morning.
economy. People were staying in hotels and eating out,” he said. Hotel management contacted the other groups and businesses. Thursday morning and told them they had until that night to remove their property, without much explanation. A. sign on the hotel door said the establishment, which had been for sale for some time, would be dosed until further notice, “due to financial difficulties.” The hotel’s manager declined to' comment on the situation. ’ ^
About 20 unionized employees at the hotel, bar, beer and* wine store and restaurant are out of work, said Kevin Smytij,-business representative with the Hotel, Restaurant and DJt; nary Employees and Bartenders’ Union. The union, which was* notified of die dosure by hotel management Thursday mom-' ing, was scheduled to meet with employees Friday afternoon.' “They have some questions, as you can well imagine,” he said.! But Smyth said the employees weren’t surprised by the do-' sure. “They kind of had an inclination this was coming,” he-said. The union once represented three times as many employ-; ees at the hotel, but that number has gradually dropped over! the past few years, as the cabaret dosed last year and the bar reduced operations, Smyth said.
The 100-room Yellowhead Inn is owned by Jenson International Holdings (Canada) Limited, which lists three principals with West Vancouver or Vancouver addresses and no listed; telephone numbers. According to records with the B.C. government corporate registry, the company is not in liquidation or receivership. However, the B.C. Company Act allows seven days for a notice of receivership appointment to be filed.
Casino plan fuels fierce debate
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■ Where Northern B.C. comes to saveI
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Gov’t
COLLINS
course, minister says
Collins explained that even though spending has increased in areas like health and education recently, the Liberal government is on target for a small surplus by 2005. The following year, the Liberals are projecting a $375 million surplus.
Collins said the one-third downsizing of the dvil service — a cut of 11,800 jobs—is ahead of schedule. There are 1,400jobs left to cut, and the majority of the reductions, so far, have been through early retirement and severance packages.
The government is paying dose attention to rural and northern B.C. with its Heartlands Economic Strategy, noted Collins. It has set aside about one-third of its $650-million spending on transportation infrastructure for the so-called heartlands during
the next three years. The transportation funding increase is being paid for by a 3.5-cent-a-litre increase in the fuel tax, which goes into effect today.
Collins said it was necessary to do that so as not to increase B.C.’s debt.
Other key initiatives for northern B.C. indude tax changes to encourage mineral exploration and the massive restructuring of the forest sector, he said.
The province has already set aside $275 million to ease the pain of the forestry changes, but Collins said it’s necessary to introduce market reforms to timber pricing and logging rights.
Another key for the North is the establishment of a tourism task force to help the startup and enhancement of resorts, he said. “We have incredible places around the province we don’t market very well,” Collins said following his presentation.
The province can help with permitting and securing land use, he said.
The Liberals have come under fire for their tax-cut and spending-cut strategy with critics, induding labour, saying the cuts are eroding the foundation of small, resource-based communities throughout the province. \
Businesses, groups scramble after Yellowhead Inn closes
NHA ponders other uses
for seniors’ complex
by BERNICE TRICK Citizen staff
The Northern Health Authority will be doing a six-month study of Rainbow Intermediate Care Home with an eye to giving it a different use.
The Prince George home for seniors, which accommodates 40 residents, in time will no longer be used as an intermediate care home.
“The facility is not functionally suited to care for residents with high-level needs,” said Tim Rowe, regional director for home and community care.
The NHA will be looking at other uses for it, with options to indude converting the units to independent housing with support services, or possibly expanding the adult day-care centre already operating at the facility.
Rowe said it’s part of a plan to provide more housing units to give Prince George seniors the level of care they need.
The plan indudes upgrading of at least 20 units at Alward Place for independent living with support services, and boosting 32 units at Laurier Manor to the assisted-living level.
“It’s a whole shift to allow seniors to live independently in the community for a longer time they they would have been able in the past,” Rowe said.
Under the new plan, intermediate-care residents with lower care needs will be supported in the community as long as possible either in assisted living or independent housing facilities, while those with the highest needs will be cared for in
complex-care facilities like Simon Fraser Lodge and Jubilee Lodge, Rowe said.
Mary Pat Riley, representative for Hospital Employees Union in the North, said one concern of the union is that “conflicting messages are going out to the different groups and no one is really getting the full truth.”
Riley said the union has heard that Rainbow will be “closing down” within 12 to 14 months and half the residents will be moved to Alward Place.
But health officials say no one will be asked to leave Rainbow. Instead, beds which become empty will remain empty until the best usage is determined.
In the short term, fiowever, empty beds may be
used for respite care for short periods of time, officials say.
The upgraded units at Alward Place and Laurier Manor will provide one-bedroom apartments for seniors along with 24-hour emergency response system and recreational services.
Depending on the level of care required, seniors can have meals, housekeeping and personal care services such as help with grooming, mobility, medication and necessary care needs.
The current home and community care plan offers four care designations: home care, independent housing with support services, assisted living, and complex care.
Former designations were home care, intermediate care and extended care.
a revamped and expanded casino should go in Prince George.
The developer, Prince George gaming operator John Major, says he has simply exhausted potential downtown sites. And Major is facing a time deadline. Casino Hollywood is one of four casinos in the province given the green light by the B.C. government to relocate in order to expand. But the move must be complete by August 2004.
The 5.1-hectare parcel behind Mr. P.G. he’d like to rezone for the development of a $20-million casino and hotel complex is the third Highway 16 West location he’s considered. More than a year ago he made a $1.5-million bid for a parcel of land at the Prince
BRIERE
George Golf and Curling Club, which was narrowly rejected by the club membership. In February, he abandoned a plan to relocate the casino to the Pine Valley driving rapge land on Range Road. He says he’s investigated five sites downtown.
The developer hosted a meeting this week at Van Bi-en elementary school to outline the proposal to neighbourhood residents, some of whose homes will back onto the project.
Casino Hollywood marking director Craig Briere told the crowd of about 100 that locating the casino downtown was not feasible given the B.C. Lottery Corporation wants it located on seven or eight acres.
“In layman’s terms, that’s equivalent
to four dty blocks,” he said. “Even if we were able to secure four square city blocksi in the downtown, the cost of the property would be beyond our means. We feel that (this highway location) is the best available location for a new casino and hotel. The location allows us to provide a first-class facility that can stop'tourists and can become a destination for travellers. It offers the required space for parking, the hotel, the casino and additional space for esthetics such as the green belt, a landscaped entrance and a landscaped parking lot.”
The neighbours didn’t appear sold on the project, dting concerns such as a loss of privacy, an increase in noise and crime, the potential for prostitutes to migrate to the area, increased traffic and more commerdal development.
— See more on page 13
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff
; B.C. is still on track to balance its budget by 2005 •and meets its target of cutting provincial government jobs by one third, as well as keeping its tax rates competitive in Canada, Finance Minister Gary Collins told a business luncheon here Friday.
“We’re staying on course. We’re sticking to the plan,” he told about 100 at a Prince George Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Ramada Hotel. “I want to make sure all of you in the business community understand that because it’s an important message to give to your colleagues, your investors, your partners and the people who are concerned about the future of British Columbia.”
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by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff
It’s a simple question.
Does Casino Hollywood belong downtown or should it be allowed to relocate outside of the city’s core to a highway location?
The development issues the proposed relocation of the casino from George Street to a prominent Highway 16 location have brought to a boil, however, are anything but simple.
It focuses attention on a long-simmering dispute between downtown development versus commercial sprawl on the city’s key highway corridor, and the role a destination-style casino might play in attracting tourists to Prince George. There’s also a question of how much sway the B.C. Lottery Corporation, which is responsible for casinos in the province, has over where
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