Why should some folks not pay, when most do? (Snip) Do some folks just feel that they are "above the law" and that rules don't apply to them?
I dunno, why do some people steal Mountain Bikes, when most don’t?
I don’t think, in terms of business licencing, it’s really a matter of lawlessness. Matter of fact, I think fluffy and rustled offered some very good explanations of some of the forces at play. I used the mountain bikes to segue into my own story of why I’m not likely to ever have anything to do with the business licencing department. I’m offering you this story, not as an axe to grind against the city, but as something you might consider while watching the city approach compliance issues.
A couple of years ago I talked a couple into moving to Penticton. We have shared experience, and to some degree, success in our previous industry. All of us decided it was time to move on to other things. They went much further east for a while, and I settled here. When we came together again there was talk amongst us of all the possibilities we could explore together in this new setting. We all saw a number of possibilities and a lot of potential.
My friend and I kicked around a few bigger ideas and his wife had a skill set and training that allowed her to pull her business plan out of a box. That worked for us… you go first, and we’ll watch what happens.
First and on the positive side, the business licencing process was easy for her to navigate. Finding a suitable small commercial space that was available for rent was also painless. Then came the building department inspection. Let me first say, who wouldn’t pay a reasonable fee to have a professional with experience in building regulations do an assessment? To try and navigate through the codes, regulations and standards, on your own is not something most people would be familiar with, and the cost to even buy access to those codes is fairly substantial on its own.
The building inspection was painless, in fact too painless, and the source of the first phone call. “Bring your camera, you’re not going to believe this”, were the words my friend used. What’s going on, I wondered, as I drove downtown? Into the commercial space I went, after looking over the positive building inspection report. The space was basically a 10X10 office, maybe a little larger, with one window, 4 plug outlets and a light switch. Not much, in the way of a complex building inspection.
The light switch was an open box, no plate cover, 3 of the outlets were also sans plate covers and the fourth was badly cracked and pulled out of the wall. Did she feel she got her money’s worth out of the inspection? Nope, not at all, in fact, she found herself in an awkward position of either having to approach her building owner with her concerns, or hire an electrician to deal with it quietly. Not much to take to the owner, since the inspection report clearly showed no issues, so not one to create noise, or cause problems she dealt with it.
All three of us have dealt with actors; A-list, B-list, posers, wantabes and johnny comelately’s, we’ve got vast experience to draw on and we can spot them from miles away. Actors, for the most part are good people, fun to be around, but they rarely become more than friends for a reason, or friends for a season – at best friends for a few seasons and very occasionally something a little bit more. That’s okay, but experience tell us not to let them too close, or expect too much.
Her next experience was with actors, only in this case commercial neighbours. Where are you from? How’d you get here? what are you doing? How do you make money at that? Is there money at that? How do you do that again? What was your taxable income last year on line… ? I didn’t get the impression that they weren’t likable, or genuine, but I did get the impression that she felt they were “busy”. I dunno, May-be we’re all born with a certain quota of patience for plastic relationships and once it’s filled you’re done.
Meanwhile, buddy and I, had decided we need to find some shop space, not really to launch a business venture, but to consolidate the elements to launch a business venture from – kick around a few projects that we enjoy working on. As luck would have it, we happened along a certain space on Carmi Road that just so happened to be in the city’s sights. Did we hear some positive and reassuring reviews from the artisan working in that space? Yeah, no.
I was also dealing with my own city situation, although at the time it didn’t really colour my outlook too much. It’s not like I haven’t heard no, or you can’t do that, from city officials before. Matter of fact, I’ve heard it lots and I’ve had to work through the issues with city officials on numerous occasions in my professional life. Unfortunately,around this time my issue with the city started turning surreal and neither I, nor my friend, could ignore some things that were becoming apparent.
I’m not going into details, but I will offer a little backstory on how I look at city issues, and why I see them the way I do.
Back in 1987, when the film industry was still a small but growing concern, based mainly out of empty warehouses, and centered on Cannell formula of small pyro technical action sequences involving car crashes; I went to work on a feature film that called for a gas station to be “blown up”. The location was chosen, Pender and Keefer, in Vancouver’s downtown eastside. An abandoned gas station – perfect. As I’m sure you can imagine, when we approached the City of Vancouver, the police, fire and bylaw departments, etc…, and told them we were going to create an explosion sequence in this abandoned gas station – everyone involved said, “oh yeah - sure, no problem”. Not.
Ha ha ha, - Yeah, NO! NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! CAN’T HAPPEN! Blah, blah, words, codes, laws, more words and, NO. And, I can tell you now, here in Penticton that most definitely would have been the end of it.
Thankfully, for my careers sake, Penticton’s approach to problems like this is the exception, and not the rule. That gas station provided the perfect fireball and the debris thrown from it during the explosion sequence was visually stunning.
For the production company, problems like this have an intensive and comprehensive approach that mirrors the approach local government’s take to managing emergencies. It starts with a hazard assessment (HRVA), but that assessment never really finishes and is instead an ongoing assessment process. Then we go into what local governments would call the four phases of emergency management. Only for us, there are three phases and our goal is to never let our event take on any aspect of becoming an emergency. Mitigation isn’t really a phase to us, it’s an ongoing process that we maintain through the three phases of our event.
We do our pre-event planning, identify the risks, codes, regulations, occupational health and safety requirements: depending on our statutory requirements and risk assessment findings, we might bring in subject matter experts. This all happens in a very rigid departmentalized system, similar to the BC ICS system that would be employed in an emergency. The hairdresser doesn’t speak to costume issues, the electrician doesn’t speak to SPFX issues… We poll our neighbourhoods for support and to familiarize them with what we’re going to do. We cover our technical requirements, regulatory concerns, OH&S requirements, plan, plan, and plan some more. We dot I’s and cross t’s and work with the stakeholders in good faith making sure that they understand our full intentions. This is not ever handled as something that might be is easier to beg forgiveness for. We all take it very seriously and we need our AHJ’s to take it very seriously too. Open, good faith, forthright communication and that often involves conflict – conflict that must be resolved.
Next phase, we go into is our operational phase at the location. We’ve secured our permitting and start preparing our set. We lock the location down – it’s ours and nothing happens that isn’t in our plan. Our inspections are scheduled and the focus is solely, the agencies inspection regime. Our various departments work from a set of standard operational guidelines and everyone knows what is expected of them. We have representatives from our locations department in the immediate community providing two-way communication with the stakeholders. We put redundant safety mechanisms in every step of the way, and long before the day, every department will have completed dry runs of their various roles. Throughout it all, hazards are assessed and measures are put in place to mitigate both our risks, and our potential impact on our surroundings. As more resources are put in place, our security and mitigation measure are increased. Finally, on the day, we’ll have resources from the city in place to assist us with our event. We’ll have police locking down the location with us, Fire will be standing by, not to take part in our event, but as an extra measure. We’ll have paramedics from BC Ambulance standing by to takeover for our own first aid attendants – if we ask. Every step of the way, our plan is consulted and executed, our mitigation measures are updated and we do everything we can to lessen our immediate impact on our surroundings.
Finally, our gag is completed, the fire ball goes up in the air, the debris comes blowing out the windows and it’s all over - well, no, not really. We start the comprehensive recovery phase and again this has all been pre-planned and everyone knows what’s expected. Our location will remain locked down and under our exclusive control until we know there are no risks. Gas systems are removed, various types of pyro secured and removed. Technicians will disable the various gear used in the gag and locations will immediately begin polling our neighbourhood to hear and communicate any concerns stakeholders have from the event. Our power system is removed and our location is restored, or at least secured in a safe state. When we’re completely out of a neighbourhood, we release our set to the owner and we start our after action meetings to make sure we’re good and there were no issues that could come back and bite the company. Ultimately, we restore the location to at least its original condition or better.
Often times, long after the production has moved on, the issues, lessons learned, will live on through our technical people in the guilds and unions. Everyone involved, was employed the company, but really, they work for the industry.
Oh, but I digress – and terribly this time. I was going to tell you about a Mountain Bike and the topic is increased power rates… forgive me.
So, none of us are into watching actors rehearse lines. The wife is craving her own space without feeling other people are vicariously involved in her business. My buddy and I are resigned to the fact that Penticton isn’t likely the best, or even a viable location for any ventures we’d be into entertaining. If we were interested in opening a box, chain or franchise, this city would probably be, as good a place to be, as anywhere else. And then my friend has his second mountain bike stolen from the only place that he’s allowed to store his mountain bikes. Awesome position to be in, follow the rules and be victimized – repeatedly. To the apparent shrug of the person putting the rules in place.
They broke their lease, closed the business, put all their stuff into storage. When they came to retrieve their possessions, in mid-July, the height of our tourist season, they showed up at 9:00 am, loaded the truck and were gone by 12:30 pm. Apparently, there is a good restaurant in Princeton, where they planned to stop for a late lunch. Hmm…
Look, I like it here. I don’t have any time to be dispensing any hate on the city, they’ve wasted more than enough of my time. But that’s not to say I wouldn’t take a moment or two to try and make this a better place to be. I would suggest you shouldn’t be too worried about the fee’s the city won’t be getting from Drip’s needlepoint online ventures – you’ve really got bigger concerns.
Ugh, you know that outside of Penticton, corporations pay Municipalities fees to run big events – right? Yeah, that’s right, the cheques usually get mailed the other way.
Power rates, for home-based businesses, - not the biggest problem, in my opinion, just another disincentive for home based businesses to come on line. Probably the easiest, by far, to fix.