Letter to the Editor

We’re writing about our disbelief of the decision of four City of Kimberley councillors to ban more drive throughs in town. Kudos to the mayor and the other two councillors who realize we need more tax revenue other than residential.

Houses, a lot of them high end, are being built on every square foot and making our residential taxes skyrocket. Our house value has increased 47% in four years as a result of this. Young people starting out don’t have much chance of owning their own home in Kimberley.

This has taken the so-called charm out of this town for locals living here. We have talked to several people and found every one of them is opposed to this ban. This includes people who were here for a kid’s hockey tournament who were heading to Cranbrook to eat.

We seem to recall that survey showed a 50-50 split opinion on drive throughs. You’re trying to force people to eat uptown without a right to choose.

As for comparing Kimberley to Nelson, they are two are totally different demographics. We are more comparable with Fernie, Invermere, and Golden, which share our tourism base.  All three have several drive throughs.

We support our small businesses. Won’t multi-national businesses contribute more tax revenue?

How is giving people a couple more choices of where they eat/ spend their money going to saturate our market?

 We definitely need a change, we need an open minded council to work with corporations to make our city attractive for business.

People come here for tourism and events all year long. Then add two thousand more people living here; three drive throughs don’t cut it.  One drive through caters to alcohol, one closes at 3 p.m., leaving only one option left to service locals and visitors.

We do have very good restaurants in town but for the average family with children they are pricey.  A lot of people come with kids who have no choice but to go back to Cranbrook to eat. I thought the idea was to keep money in Kimberley?  When kids are at an event of any kind they tend to gravitate to fast food.

The land on the south end of Marysville is perfect for a couple of drive throughs but  a certain group is totally against re-zoning it. They don’t speak for the entire town. We haven’t seen much action there except for turning the car dealership into a Yamaha dealership.

 Really don’t think anything is going to happen there industry-wise. We’re just losing tax revenue to Cranbrook. We talk to Kimberley people at Tim Horton’s who agree with us. Speaking of which, isn’t it unCanadian not to have a Tim’s? We have driven right across Canada and you see one in every town.  As people we talk to have said, this is a no brainer.

 We’re hoping the people who urged us to write this letter will contact city hall to show their support for drive throughs as well.

Perhaps the city needs a public vote on this, rather than letting four councillors shut it down?

Randy and Rochelle Wallach,

Kimberley

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