If you’ve been to any of Rivercity Players’ wonderful performances over the years and had a beer or wine while you were at it, it may surprise you to learn they are currently in the process of acquiring a liquor license.
No, they weren’t breaking the law all those other times. They did, however, have to get a special event license for each show so they could serve alcohol – a situation they hope to remedy soon.
The 96-seat theatre is maintained, developed and run exclusively by volunteers with the Rivercity Players Society, and despite the building itself being gifted to the organization back in 2012 – meaning they own it outright – there are still many expenses incurred by the organization every year, grant money for the arts is generally spread very thin and can’t really be depended on to continue or be renewed once acquired, making budgeting difficult.
A liquor primary license, according to society president Bev Sievwright, would allow them to rent the facility to more people wanting to host events, and allow them to put on more shows themselves, with the sales of alcohol generating more revenue for the organization.
“We want to rent the place out a lot more often,” Sievwright says. “We do rent it out a bit now, but we have to apply for a permit each time and that takes time and money each time. And we only have so many we can get per year.”
The society currently has “somewhere between 70 and 80” volunteers, Sievwright says, and they’ve got a good momentum going. She thinks that having a liquor license in place – as opposed to having to get one for each event and being limited in the number they can get each year – will enable them to keep that momentum going in the right direction.
“There are a lot of expenses to run a theatre, even with volunteers,” she says. “It’s constant repairs. We had to fix the roof, the siding, we just put in new carpet and we still need some electrical work done. We’re doing well these days, selling out our shows for the most part, but if we don’t keep the momentum going, we’ll start to lose volunteers, and when that starts happening, you’re in trouble.”
This week at city council, the city was being asked to support the organization’s application to get a standing liquor primary license. The city’s building inspector and fire department had both signed off on the application with no objections. The RCMP didn’t object, either, but “did express concern with the issuance of a blanket permit for ‘rentals’ with no limits put on who may be renting,” according to the staff report recommending that council support the application
Council, however, had a different concern.
Coun. Larry Samson asked staff whether the proposed liquor license would be transferrable to a different property owner in the future.
“Does the license go to the society or the property? My concern is that if sometime in the future they decided to sell the property, where would the liquor license go?”
“It is my understanding that if the property was sold, the new owner would retain the liquor license,” Director of Planning Peter Wipper told council.
That didn’t sit well with Coun. Charlie Cornfield.
“I like the idea of being able to have a glass of wine and watch a live theatre production,” Cornfield said, “and I don’t mind the issuance of a liquor primary license if it was subject to it remaining a theatre. I would not like to see this be a liquor primary license that could later be transferred upon the dissolution of the society or to a new building owner. Is it possible to put ‘subject to’ conditions on our recommendations?”
Wipper recommended that if that was a major concern of council, they should defer making a recommendation until those answers could be provided.
“There’s a whole set of regulations that govern how liquor licenses can be transferred and whatnot, so how about we bring those back to council for its consideration and once you have that you’ll be in a better position to make a decision.”
So that’s what was done. It will now come back before council Sept. 17.
Bob Tonkin, front-of-house manager, has been working on the application for the liquor license for some time and was a bit disappointed to see it deferred once it finally got before council.
“We knew going in that it wouldn’t be a quick process,” Tonkin says. “We’ve done what we can on our end – we’ve had all the inspectors in and the fire department and everything, and we’ll just have to wait and see. But it’s too bad that now we won’t have it for the fall show and we’ll have to get another permit.”
He does understand council’s concern, however.
“It’s a legitimate concern,” Tonkin admits. “There are no plans for that, so we wouldn’t care if (the license) was just for us and not for the building or whatever, if they can do it that way.”
Sievwright agrees that she, too, can’t see the building changing hands anytime soon, but understands that council has to look long-term.
“I can’t see this building ever leaving Rivercity Players,” Sievwright says. “There’s just too much passion surrounding it, so I can’t see it ever selling to someone else. But 10 or 20 years down the road, who knows? I totally get that.”
So at least for now, Rivercity Players will keep doing what they’re doing, and hope their licensing situation gets figured out so they can stop applying for individual permits every time someone wants to use their building – including them.