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Thrift shops suffer after provincial recycling shift
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Relief for businesses as highway signage changes go on hold
LEXI BAINAS CITIZEN ANDREA RONDEAU CITIZEN
Staff members at the Sassy Lion thrift store on Kenneth Street in Duncan were outraged when they discovered early last Thursday that someone had dumped garbage outside their store. And not just a bag of garbage, but a huge wooden box half-full of it. Sharon Farrel was so unhappy she marched up the street and into the Citizen office to voice her concerns. “It’s disgraceful that somebody would do that,” she said. “We’ve been worried that the new rules about recycling would see this kind of thing start to happen.” Her co-workers were also astonished, saying that even though the box had wheels under it, moving it would likely have been a two-person job, done during the night. “They just dumped it here,” said Barb Obsniuk. There have been complaints over the years from other thrift stores, notably the Salvation Army outlet on the Trans-Canada Highway, that people were been dumping garbage behind the store at the loading bay. The Sassy Lion is not usually burdened with this kind of problem, probably because it is more of a downtown operation, staff said. There have been instances even there, though, like the time two well-dressed women backed up a
Bill Benedek, Livio Michieli, Barb Obsniuk, Sharon Farrell and Ken Henn, all volunteers at the Sassy Lion thrift store in downtown Duncan, wonder how someone could dump a box of garbage on their steps. [LEXI BAINAS/CITIZEN] pickup truck to drop off what they said were clean, washed recyclable clothing. When workers were momentarily called indoors, the women dumped bags of stinking stuff and took off with a roar. However, with new regulations about what can be recycled com-
ing in, they were wondering aloud this week if they might find themselves making expensive runs to the Bings Creek recycle depot like they had to do to get rid of the big mess left last Thursday. See CONFUSION, Page 3
Any changes to the provincial highway signage policy are on hold indefinitely, Economic Development manager Geoff Millar reported to the Cowichan Valley Regional District last week. “This is actually a really good thing,” he said. “It short-cuts some of the issues that had come forward by the tourism industry and by the CVRD.” Businesses and local governments in the Cowichan Valley expressed serious concerns about proposed changes to the provincial policy that would have eliminated most of the existing signs along the TransCanada Highway from Victoria to Nanaimo, as the plan was to designate it an “expressway”. M e r r i d a l e C i d e r ’s J a n e t Docherty called the proposed changes “devastating” for tourism businesses that rely on signs to get people to turn off the highway and visit their sites. Municipality of North Cowichan Mayor Jon Lefebure and Millar called it “ridiculous” and unrealistic to designate the Duncan corridor, with a 50km/h speed limit, dotted with stop lights and crosswalks and regularly jammed with traffic, an expressway. Both also objected to the idea that, under proposed changes,
“This is actually a really good thing. It short-cuts some of the issues that had come forward by the tourism industry and by the CVRD.” GEOFF MILLAR, Economic Development manager
municipalities would have to pick and choose just a few select businesses that could go on entryway signs to their areas. But according Colin Coulter, operations technician/area manager and signage approval officer for the Ministry of Transportation, everything is on hold for the foreseeable future, said Millar. “He indicated that it may be some time before any changes or further consultation is done and in the meantime the current provincial policy will remain in effect,” Millar reported. “So that means the issues that we were concerned about, the expressway between Nanaimo and Victoria, are now moot at this point,” he told the CVRD’s regional services committee. In addition to the signage changes, Valley businesses have expressed concerns about the impact that construction on the Malahat will have on the region this summer.