A bylaw amendment will now be prepared and voted on at a future council meeting. (YouTube)

By Derek Cornet

alcohol

La Ronge council in favour of increasing retail liquor store hours

Apr 26, 2023 | 2:47 PM

The majority of La Ronge council members are in favour of increasing retail liquor store hours.

A recommendation was made at a regular meeting on Tuesday to allow liquor retail stores to operate from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days per week. Current hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday to Saturday, and 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays and statutory holidays.

La Ronge Mayor Joe Hordyski, along with councillors Jerry Hunt, Matt Klassen and Jordan McPhail, voted in favour of the increase, while deputy-mayor Abby Besharah and councillors Viviana Ruiz Arcand and Ryan Veteri were opposed.

“There are two major issues with this bylaw that was put in in 2018,” Klassen said. “There was so many implementations put in or restrictions implemented that we really can’t gauge which of those did any good, showed any positive results or negative results, however that may look.”

“The second one is council at the time had committed to review after a year the data and statistics and that never did happen. That was five years ago and this was the first time we’ve seen a review of that.”

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Hunt also expressed favour in increasing the hours to bring some normalcy back to the community.

“A couple hours in the morning, see how it goes,” he said. “If it goes south, change it. If it doesn’t, well.”

The recommendation came after a request was made by Lakeside Spirits owner Patrick Campling in March to increase the hours to 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days per week. His company was the successful buyer of the SLGA liquor permit for La Ronge and he plans on operating a store with potentially a drive-thru on Finlayson Street.

Prior to the vote on Tuesday, council heard from the Community Alcohol Management Plan committee on the benefits that have come from reducing the hours. Most data provided, which can be found online here, wasn’t current and was mainly 2019 and prior years.

Data about calls to the RCMP with alcohol as a factor in La Ronge did decrease— with 3,431 calls in 2018 to 3,175 calls in 2021. It’s unknown, however, if that decrease is attributable to reduced operating hours, or for other reasons.

The increase in retail hours will take some time to come into effect. Administration is now tasked with preparing a bylaw amendment, which will be voted on at a future meeting.

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @saskjourno