Necessary service or government overreach?
Those are the conflicting labels being applied to the Northern Village of Denare Beach’s decision to start selling gas to the public.
This month the village will install three self-serve, card-activated gas pumps on the main drag, not far from the privately owned Alpine Convenience Store, the community’s only vehicle-fuel supplier.
Mayor Carl Lentowicz says village council’s decision came after Alpine closed for the season last winter, leaving Denare Beach residents, visitors and businesses with no local option for gassing up.
“The problem with something like this [is], there was a pile of people in the community who were upset, and it even affected our business community because they couldn’t have an easy operation for themselves because they were getting their fuel [at Alpine] as well,” he said.
“So there was a spinoff and there were people upset about it, and that’s what got it going.”
Lentowicz says the village will spend about $200,000 to form a corporation to sell gas. The corporation is to pay back the principle plus three per cent a year.
Deb Arsenault, owner of Alpine, says she is “very disappointed” by the decision to use taxpayer dollars for gas pumps.
“Competition is to be expected, but never did I think that the very community I pay taxes to would become my competition,” she said. “Although we did close last winter for a few months, it was not a decision I made lightly. My concern was more about the families not being able to purchase groceries and personal necessities like milk, bread, diapers. I did not feel that the village was in jeopardy because they could not purchase fuel. There are two cardlocks and four gas stations within 15 miles of Denare Beach.”
Arsenault says the decision does not match Lentowicz’s statements about wanting to encourage business in Denare Beach, a community she says she has spent decades promoting to residents and tourists alike.
“Council [is using] the only desirable [vacant] commercial lot to put up a cardlock,” she said. “Is this promoting business in the community? We as any small business cannot ‘promise’ to be open. We sure hope to keep our doors open, but profitability, sustainability, stock and staffing all play a major role in operating a small business in a northern community.”
Arsenault questions the gas-pump expenditure in light of “all the crime plaguing our community” and believes the proposal should have gone to a public vote.
Todd MacKay, prairie director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation advocacy organization, says that while it’s not his place to tell Denare Beach what to do, the move raises red flags for him.
“I grew up in a small town and dealing with some of these issues is tough, and it is important for the community to talk it through and think of different ideas and ways of dealing with things,” he said in a phone interview. “That said, you want to be really careful here because if you do set up any kind of business backed by the government, it’s going to be really hard for any other business to set up. So if there is a different entrepreneur out there who says, ‘Hey, I’d like to take a shot at this and provide this service to the community,’ if it’s already provided by the government and ultimately subsidized by taxpayers, it’s going to be real tough for them to make a go of it, and probably they do decide to do something else.
“If it were me, I would look for other fixes for this problem first, that’s for sure.”
Even though the village expects the pumps to pay for themselves, MacKay says there is always risk involved in business. It’s one thing for a group of private investors to take that risk, he says, but it’s “a tricky thing to tie this to taxpayers.”
MacKay adds he is not aware of other municipalities that have opened gas pumps, though he cannot say it has never happened elsewhere.
Asked about criticism that the village’s pumps amount to the government competing with private enterprise, Lentowicz said he himself had that concern, but it did not outweigh other worries around the availability of fuel in
Denare Beach.
Village council approved the gas pumps – two for regular gas and one for diesel, each one accepting debit or credit card – in May.
The 24-hour pumps are to be installed this month at the corner of Mood Drive and Wigwam Avenue, at what used to be the parking lot for the now-demolished We’re Cookin’ restaurant.
