Nanaimo-Info-blog: Pub Pays No Property Taxes!

How Is This ‘Business Friendly’?More Inconsistent City Hall Logic
In what can be described as another city council ‘flip-flop’ council has agreed to give the train station on Selby Street a 10 year tax exemption which will cost city taxpayers another $30,000 in lost tax revenue.

Last August I raised the question with Councillor Johnstone as to whether the entire station would be tax exempt and she told me that the portion operating as a bar would have to pay taxes, similar to the bar at the curling club.

Recently the Nanaimo Squash club was told they may qualify for a tax exemption but that it would not apply to the bar portion of their premises.

Consistency?

Unfair To Competitors

How is this move considered ‘business friendly’ when the city, based on a whim, gives one bar the ability to operate without having to pay the same taxes that their competitors are faced with?

Looking for the logic behind this decision will give you a headache as will many other decisions that flow from our highly paid professional staff at city hall. They are the same bunch that figured awarding a $12 million building contract without going to tender was a good idea also. They are also willing to give a tax advantage to a new hotel that would effectively have an unfair advantage over existing operators.

The one common thread in many of these decisions is an almost maniacal desire to make their poorly planned and executed downtown revitalization plan succeed regardless of what it costs the taxpayers.

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