Status Quo at the Connaught Motor Inn
Prince George, B.C. – It doesn’t appear the Connaught Motor Inn will be reopening anytime soon.
Prince George City Council suspended the owner’s operating license for three months last May due to the heavy burden the motel (located at 1550 Victoria St) was putting on emergency services (police and fire) in the city as well as the condition of the facility related to its rooms and common areas.
Fred Crittenden, the City’s manager of Bylaw Services, says a total of 15 conditions were placed on owner Joe Carhoun before his failed appeal last spring.
“We were looking for a business operating plan that addressed staffing and security in a manner that would ensure the policing issues – the hundreds of policing issues that happened over a couple of years just prior to that didn’t repeat themselves,” he says.
“As well as a number of fire safety issues, questions about the actual maintenance of the building related to fire safety, structural and cleanliness within the facility.”
He says the three-month deadline came and went September 30 with none of the conditions fully met. Crittenden says the owner has yet to reapply for his license either. So what next?
“So as part of Council’s resolution, the license remains suspended indefinitely until such time as they meet all the conditions that would allow them to get their license reinstated.”
Could the site sit as is indefinitely?
“There is nothing requiring them to reopen the business,” notes Crittenden. “If the building becomes such that we felt it was a danger or the windows starting getting broken out or something that like – there are remedial action type of things we could then ask Council to approve to ensure that those things are taken care of.”
But until that time, he acknowledges the City is in a holding pattern.
“Yeah, absolutely. We just monitor it to make sure that the business isn’t operating and if any work is being done that the proper permits or anything that’s being done as far as structural or electrical or plumbing have proper permits.”
250News has attempted to contact Carhoun regarding this story but has so far been unsuccessful.
Comments
None of the conditions have been completely fulfilled. Does this mean that serious progress has been made on some of them?
With it shut down for past 3 months and doesn’t seem likely to reopen, guess The City is saving themselves a bundle now
Good location for the PAC.
This would make a great location for low income seniors.
Just came back from a Holiday , what other Cities are doing with their main drags is building strip malls with Condos on top. Both trouble Motels on Queensway need to be torn down. Prince George needs to think out of the Box and try to bring more businesses and Jobs to the City.
Queensway or Victoria? I don’t know of two on Queensway.
The thing about these motels is that it keeps the undesirables in a certain area. The police station and fire dept are close so it probably saved the city money when it was open. They did not have to go far. Now all these dirtbags are spread all over town and the police have to travel around chasing them. These people did not move out of town or change their habits they just spread out. Sometimes the city council likes to grandstand and by doing so they create more problems
Ryder; yours is not an original idea, the Nazi’s used it in the 1930’s to 40’s in Europe, where parts of the ghettos were assigned for Jews only living. But somehow your thinking along the same lines as the Nazi’s would probably not offend, or be unsettling to, you.
Canada did the same during the war with the Chinese. You do know the term ghetto meant segregation and isolation and not slums right? Leaving this as low cost housing is not segregation although it may turn into a slum. You are not forcing someone to live in low cost housing, it is their choice – which I might add they no longer have and as Ryder put it they are now spread out all over PG with probably just as many RCMP callouts as before. Just no longer in the same general location
JGalt, you are probably the worst poster on here for calling names. Nazi? come on you should worry more about your patients and less about insulting people over their comments maybe then you wouldn’t be one of the lowest rated MD’s in town.
“…and as Ryder put it they are now spread out all over PG…” and why not? Last I checked, Canada is a free country and people are free to live where they want to.
I meant to say Victoria St. Lets keep the undesirables in one area , that’s a great Idea but its a problem If you live in the area that the undesirables were transferred to from the Downtown trying to clean it up. Our City so welcoming to the no income people lots are coming here from all over Canada. Its not fair to keep it in one area , we all pay the same taxes. The Motels need to be torn down, but I am sure the it will be reopened to house the homeless from all over.
There has been a huge increase in the number of people being fed by charities in Prince George. Something like 20 per day 10/15 years ago, to roughly 200+ this year.
You should keep in mind that the City gets paid for various programs, including the gas tax on a per capita basis. Therefore these low income, people are worth there weight in gold to the City. That’s why they have homeless counts, and count the people on the street, during the census so that they are eligible for money for these people. The more homeless that come to Prince George, the more money the city gets.
We really need a strategy to have some sort of facilities for these people to keep them off the street, and try to keep them safe.
This calls for action from the present Mayor and Council, Administration, RCMP, Firemen, and citizens at large.
Could we be one of the first cities to actually solve this problem.??
Looking at it the way you do sure makes a lot of sense! If everybody gets together and tackles the issue once and for all, the cost spread over a long period of time would be affordable, especially when grants are secured from the other two levels of government. Nobody ought to be homeless in a country like ours. We have money for all kinds of questionable things so we should just re-arrange our priorities and do the obvious.
The government bought the spruce tower high rise on 22 ave. It now houses a lot of people that needed it. It looks clean and orderly. The same could be done here, decent people that just need a place to call there own. It does a whole lot of good making the whole of society that much better . I don’t mind some of my tax dollars going to help.
The government paid $8 million for a burnt building with a market value of approximately $800,000. Then they spent almost $2 million renovating it, so yeah, it better look good. That’s the type of fiscal policy we’ve all come to expect from the Christy Clark Liberal government.
P.S would hate to see the owner make huge profit selling though.
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