BC Business
Booze newsThe B.C. government will put liquor policy, the file that keeps on giving, under review by a new minister this fall. Coralee Oakes—on Friday named minister of small business, red-tape reduction, and responsible for the Liquor Distribution Branch—will now head up the government’s non-stop trickle of liquor policy reforms in September. The move follows hawkish criticism from David Eby, the NDP’s critic on the file, and concerns from the Alliance of Beverage Licensees of British Columbia (ABLE BC)—an industry group for restaurants, bars and hotels that serve—for changes that raised the price of craft beer. Oakes takes over from Minister of Justice Suzanne Anton, who presided over many booze-related announcements these last two years. Among the changes that ABLE BC wants: the ability for private liquor stores to sell to bars and extending the discounts found at government liquor stores to private ones. While the file falls under Oakes, the review in September will be led by Richmond MLA John Yap.
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Hill concernsIf your property poses a safety risk, say the potential for a landslide, who is responsible to fix it? Last Thursday, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ordered two North Vancouver homeowners to pay between $75,000 and $100,000 in geotechnical upgrades to their property, which sits atop a steep slope in North Vancouver. The couple, Mostafa Madaninejad and Fatemeh Khosravi-Amiri, who bought the house 20 years ago, had hoped the the municipality would pick up the costs after it found in 2008 that the property posed a landslide risk. The couple has until October 1 to pay up. (via CBC)
Border moneyFlyers landing at YVR from China have done a remarkably poor job at declaring their cash-on-hand, according to an investigation by the Province that looked at federal data and information, accessed by Freedom of Information requests into the federal government’s anti-corruption operations conducted in partnership with the Chinese government. In a two-year period from 2012 to 2014, $10 million was seized at YVR from Chinese nations, a portion of the $56 million seized from all travellers, including Canadians, over the same period. But before you grab the pitchfork, angry that Vancouver is awash in illicit money, consider the seizures as a positive sign of cooperation between Canadian and Chinese officials, or so writes Victor Wong, executive director of Chinese Canadian National Council, in a response to the piece. Weigh in below.