Pajo’s in the park to close

Alan Campbell

One of Steveston’s seaside staples is closing its doors after 23 years serving the community

Pajo’s at Garry Point Park announced yesterday that it will serve its last customers on Friday, March 31

In its announcement on social media, Pajo’s said that it was “extremely saddened” to break the news, but that the “City of Richmond has chosen a new vendor for the location ”

It added that it’s “almost unthinkable and with extremely heavy hearts that we anticipate serving you for the last time ”

A city spokesperson said it has “identified an experienced Richmond-based business offering a range of menu options including fish and chips to operate at the Garry Point Park concession starting this spring

“While we cannot announce who they are just yet, the operator was chosen through an open public tender process in late2022 that was the result of a lease renewal process. ”

Pajo’s went on to express its “sincere thanks” to its loyal customers

“While our family-owned business has become part of the fabric of the...community many of you have become part of our

$120,000 budget for 926 mail-in votes

The budget for mail-in voting in the recent Richmond municipal election was $120,000 but this only yielded 926 votes 2 6 per cent of the votes cast

In contrast, in the 2021 by-election for one council seat won by Andy Hobbs 14 5 per cent of voters cast a mail-in ballot, with a total of 1,895

The 2021 by-election was the first time mail-in voting was allowed for all voters, put in place to encourage social distancing due to the on-going pandemic

In the run-up to the October 2022 election, the city anticipated and had prepared for between 7,000 and 8,000 mail-in votes.

While the budget for mail-in voting was set at $120,000, the report didn’t give the final cost.

The 2022 municipal election went over budget by about $220,000 and yet voter turnout dropped about 12 per cent compared to the previous election, with 24 4 per cent of eligible voters casting a ballot extended family as well

“We would also like to take this opportunity to express our deep thanks and gratitude especially to our store manager of 23 years, Kathy Miller, all of our current team members, and to the hundreds of ‘family members’ we have had as part of the Pajo’s team over the years, many of them will count Pajo’s as their very first job ”

Pajo’s Steveston Harbour location will remain open

Pajo’s Garry Point Park location will close at the end of this week, after the city chose a new vendor

“The voter turnout was really terrible,” said Mayor Malcolm Brodie at Monday’s committee meeting where city council was going over a report on the municipal election However, he noted, other cities, with the notable exception of Surrey, had worse turnouts

Of the 35,093 votes cast in 2022, 23 per cent were cast in advance polls

The budget for the election was set at $900,000, but the expenses ended up at almost $1 2 million $140,000 was used from the unspent funds of the 2021 by-election

The city also had an Election Mobile App City staff noted the low utilization of the app was “unanticipated ” Only 300 users downloaded the app

As for COVID-19 measures, the city ended up buying plexiglass barriers During the 2021 byelection, the city borrowed them at no cost from Elections BC

Maria Rantanen/News

What would you do if the company you’d bought beds from claimed they’d delivered the wrong product and wanted more than $2,000 to make up the difference?

Well, that’s the scenario that presented itself to a Richmond resident last summer when she bought two twin beds from Yaletown Interiors on Bridgeport Road

Santosh Goel purchased the beds last June on the understanding that it had a storage component along the side, as per the one she viewed in Yaletown’s showroom

The bed company duly delivered the beds in question and assembled them at the customer’s home

But when employees returned a few days later to replace some “mismatched bed knobs,” they said to Goel’s husband that they needed to exchange the delivered beds’ storage drawers for non-storage bed rails and slats

Yaletown claimed that the beds with storage drawers even though it was what Goel had looked at in the showroom were not what Goel paid for and that they had delivered the storage beds by mistake.

Goel’s husband refused the offer and Yaletown took the matter to a Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT), asking for the $2,181 76 for the delivered beds’ alleged price difference and an extra delivery charge

But in a recently published CRT ruling, it was decided that the customer was not liable for the difference.

In his ruling, CRT member Chad McCarthy, said, among other things, that Yale- town “has not met its burden of showing the parties agreed non-storage beds would be provided for the paid purchase price ”

Yaletown had argued that the beds viewed in the showroom by Goel could be ordered either with or without the storage drawer feature, adding that she allegedly selected and paid for the bed version without the storage feature, which it says was cheaper but was not on display.

Specifically, a Yaletown salesperson, told the CRT that Goel selected the non-storage beds after the price difference was explained to her.

“I find internal Yaletown documents in evidence, as well as the written statement of the employee who loaded the beds, SD, show that Yaletown intended to deliver beds without storage but actually delivered beds with storage,” wrote McCarthy

However, Goel denied seeing any of the internal documents, with McCarthy adding that “the evidence does not demonstrate that she saw them or knew about Yaletown’s internal bed delivery intentions ”

Additionally, a Yaletown invoice listed, among other purchases, two “twin beds” with model numbers, without stating whether those beds had a storage feature or not McCarthy said he found neither Yaletown’s nor Goel’s version of events at the showroom more reliable than the other and that none of the evidence shows that Goel picked the non-storage beds

Meanwhile, Yaletown lost another CRT ruling when a customer successfully bid to have his $5,000 deposit returned for a cancelled furniture order, also last year

The customer had bought around $10,000 worth of furniture, but changed his mind a week after making the purchase