Duane Hicks
The town received plenty of feedback on its draft business licence bylaw and now will take that input and decide which revisions to make.
An open house at the Civic Centre yesterday from 4-6 p.m. saw about 20 business owners attend, either to get clarification on the draft bylaw, question it, or make suggestions.
Some of the key suggestions and questions brought up at the open house included:
•the bylaw needs to better define which businesses need liability insurance which name the town as “additional insured,” and which ones do not;
•why do professionals (i.e., lawyers, doctors, dentists, optometrists, etc.) need a business licence from the town when they already are licensed by their own respective governing organizations;
•why do lawyers who come in from out of town to defend people not need a business licence if local lawyers do;
•could the town possibly issue licences on a multi-year basis instead of requiring businesses to get a new one each year;
•why does Fort Frances require business licences when other regional municipalities do not (except for Kenora, which requires a one-time business licence); and
•do school groups selling goods or holding events to raise funds need a business licence.
Town clerk Lisa Slomke said afterwards that she and local bylaw enforcement officer Patrick Briere now will “take all of the recommendations back to council and see which direction they want us to go.”
“In many cases, a couple of the small ones—I know they’ll be supportive of them,” she remarked.
“But some of the more significant changes, they’ll want us to confer with them and make sure that is the direction they want us to go.
“This is by no means done,” Slomke stressed. “We identified that a long time ago.
“This has been a long process; it’s been over a year working on this bylaw,” she noted.
“We’re eyeball deep in this thing, we’re not going back now.
“I think there’s more improvements to it than the few question marks that have been identified,” added Slomke.
“I think overall, we’ve made positive progress and we continue to move in that direction.”
The topic of liability insurance, naming the town as an “additional insured,” was a major talking point at yesterday’s open house, with some people questioning why the bylaw doesn’t more clearly define which businesses must have this requirement.
“We need to refine the wording in the whole insurance section because it says right now that ‘you shall’ while it needs to say, ‘you may,’ be requested to [name the town as ‘additional insured’ on your policy],” Slomke explained.
She reiterated the town won’t be requiring all businesses to do this; the wording is in the bylaw to give the town the flexibility to require higher-risk ones to have it.
With the help of the town’s insurer, the town will decide on which businesses are high-risk or not.
Carrie Shouldice of Gillons’ Insurance explained what it means to add the town as an “additional insured” on a policy.
“In no way are you going to be picking up any negligence of the town,” she told business owners.
“It just means that in reference to your business licence, if somebody, for whatever reason, complains about the town giving you a licence and that’s what the lawsuit is about, then the town is ‘additional insured’ on your policy.”
If an individual slips and falls on the sidewalk in front of your business, and the town is named as well as your business, “the town has lots of insurance, and they’re going to be covered for their defence and any part of their negligence,” Shouldice added.
“So I don’t want you to think you’re picking up any part of the town’s negligence on your policies by adding them as an ‘additional insured,’” she stressed.
“That’s not the case at all.”
As well, having another party “additional insured” won’t drive up your insurance rate, assured Shouldice.
Rather, she said it’s simply a matter of changing the wording.
To answer another question from yesterday’s open house, business licence fees are not increasing with the new bylaw.
However, the fees are expected to rise, as they have most years, when the new user fee schedule for 2017 is approved.
The hike will be about 1.5 percent, as per the Consumer Price Index (i.e., inflation).
Another change coming down the line is that in future, business licence applications will be available electronically.
As well, business which are re-applying will get application forms which already are filled out with their information, making it as easy as possible to apply.
They’ll just have to revise any information that may have changed from previous years.
Meanwhile, business owners the Times spoke with yesterday seemed satisfied by the information provided at the open house.
“[My questions] were answered, and I feel like the town is trying to move forward to be transparent and open so that we understand where we are placed,” said Dawn Gustafson of LifetimeSmiles.
“I would like to see the rewrite when it is complete and maybe, hopefully, another open house to review it,” said Travis Glowasky of Studio Gibbous.
“My questions were answered. There was some clarification,” he added.
“Personally, I’m still confused on a few items but I hope that with the re-write, some of that will be clarified.”
The draft document is available at the Civic Centre, as well as online at www.fort-frances.com
