WEATHER
GETTING A KICK OUT OF THE KTW CHRISTMAS CHEER FUND
Sun and clouds High 3 C Low -3 C
• Jim Doan’s karate students will be raising thousands for charities via their annual kick-a-thon/A4 • How you can help/A4 • A profile of charities benefitting from the fund/A5 • Your donations thus far/A5
SUN PEAKS SNOW REPORT Mid-mountain: 47 cm Alpine: 68 cm Snow phone: 250-578-7232
KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK THURSDAY
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NOVEMBER 19, 2015 | Volume 28 No. 139
BUDGET MEETING? WHAT BUDGET MEETING?
The first of two public meetings on the city budget at Sandman Centre yesterday once again featured more staff than residents. This day meeting was dominated by empty chairs. Go online to kamloopsthisweek. com to find out what was on the minds of those who attended last night’s session. DAVE EAGLES/KTW
Overwaitea eyes selling wine in Kamloops store CAM FORTEMS STAFF REPORTER cam@kamloopsthisweek.com
Overwaitea Food Group wants to sell wine from grocery store shelves in Kamloops after acquiring a special licence from a small wine retailer in Columbia Square Mall. Tracy Gray, owner of Discover Wines in Kamloops and Kelowna, confirmed she will no longer operate the stores in the new year. The Kamloops retailer will remain open until some time in January, when it will close permanently. Discover Wines held the contract for two of B.C. Wine Institute’s 21 licences in B.C. Those were sold to Overwaitea in a deal announced Tuesday. Overwaitea Food Group told KTW in an email message it wants to sell B.C. wine from its shelves in Kamloops. “We are pleased to have the opportunity to acquire this licence and it is our hope that we will be able to bring this offering to the residents of Kamloops,” it said in a statement. The corporation offered no other details. However, a city planner said Overwaitea cannot simply move
that special licence a few hundred feet to its flagship Save-OnFoods store in Columbia Place Mall without city hall’s approval. The Discover Wines licence is on a different lot, said planner Rod Martin, adding moving it will require a developmentvariance hearing in front of council. The licence transfer is the latest move in a convoluted set of rules brought in by the B.C. Liberal government, as well as city hall. Those provincial rules limit any new private liquor store from locating within one kilometre of an existing liquor retailer. The special VQA licence to sell only B.C. wine from shelves is exempt from that rule. Complicating matters, however, is a flip-flop by Kamloops council, which reversed its position this year and brought those special VQA licences in line with the provincial one-kilometre rule within city limits. “If they do it in Kamloops, they’ll have to go through the process a normal liquor store would,” said Al Deacon, who owns the Fox’n Hounds Liquor Store in Sahali Mall, across Summit Drive from Save-On-Foods. Deacon said he and other private retailers would oppose
transfer of Discover Wines’ licence to the Columbia Place SaveOn-Foods store. “We look at Australia, where 70 per cent of the wine purchased is at grocery stores,” said Deacon, who is active with a provincial private liquor association. “It would definitely have an impact on all retailers.” The sale of B.C. wine only on grocery shelves has also come under criticism from American and South American trade groups, which say the practise is contrary to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Discover Wines owner Gray told KTW the B.C. Wine Institute made the decision to transfer the licences to Overwaitea. “We were doing well and growing the business . . . [But] this is what the industry wants. Overwhelmingly it’s supported by the industry.” There are already three Overwaitea stores in the Lower Mainland selling 1,000 B.C. wine products. The B.C. Wine Institute said the province will auction about 24 new special wine store licences early next year, creating 45 wine-on-the-shelf licences.
dq.ca Valid November 20 - December 31, 2014
KAMLOOPS LOCATIONS!
Buy 1 box, get 1 bo ox
Downtown - 811 Victoria Street 250.372.3744 Aberdeen - 1517 Hugh Allan Drive 250.372.3705 North Shore Grill & Chill - 1075 8th Street 250.554.4390