Just who is responsible for Prince Rupert's lack of a well deserved Teen Burger and Fries, or a nice heaping helping of Chubby Chicken?
Is it a recalcitrant City Hall, proclaiming Open For Business, while denying a business the chance to Open.
Or is it a national chain and local shopping mall, steadfast holding to their plan to bring us the best of Albert and Walter to the Upper Level of the Rupert Square and only the Rupert Square?
The truth is somewhere in the fuzzy background of two threads of the same story that played out on Thursday for Rupertites to bite into.
The Great A & W debate began with what has now somehow become a trilogy of stories from the weekly newspaper, a publication which barely shows an interest in City Hall stories at the best of times (there was a City Council session this week by the way, just in case anyone wanted to know), suddenly embracing at full on a devotion to the tale of Prince Rupert's elusive fast food franchise.
First with the original story on the issue, followed by an editorial from the Fraser Street fulcrum of bombast and then through that ever popular weekly paper creation the Web Poll.
Plans to bring A&W to Prince Rupert go cold
Do you think the upper lot in the mall is the right location for an A&W drive-thru in Prince Rupert?
With the paper mining the community's desire for access to the A & W Burger family to some extreme dedication, Mayor Lee Brain once again quickly took to his Facebook page on Thursday.
This time offering up both his version of events related to what now seems to be a controversy, along with some video that it seems is designed to show how the site in question is not suitable for such a venture in the downtown area.
All of which were well received by the Mayor's regular core constituency that is found on Facebook, many of whom, who were quick to show that they were in lock step for the most part with the Mayor's themes.
Along with his review of the tribulations towards the opportunity to dine in or take out, the Mayor appears to have added another name to his growing list of grievances with organizations, indicating in his post that this tempest of the taste buds has all been driven by the Mall management.
"Folks need to be aware that this is a proposal by the mall owners - they don't speak for A&W. A&W HQ is not married to this location regardless of what the mall owners say."
It made for a naming of the names, which now would seem to put the Rupert Square in the Mayor's dog house along with Port Edward and past disputes with the School District (Kanata school lands, by-elections never held)
How it all plays out remains to be seen, but it would appear that the Mayor and Council will remain firm on the zoning and traffic problems posed by the Mall parking lot
While the Mall and franchisee seem adamant as well, that their preferred location is their preferred location and at the end of the day, it's their money to invest, so the stalemate may continue for a while yet.
The A & W saga has been almost a comical soap opera around here for a while, the most recent version rising up from the ashes of the past attempts to bring us burgers back in the fall of 2012.
The popular Canadian fast food franchise was once a Prince Rupert fixture but is but a distant memory of the seventies now, wistfully remembered from the days of bounty and growth in the region.
And like a teenager dashing to the counter for an after school snack, the story continues to come back as a regular feature. Usually whenever we get excited about potential Shopping Villages and other rumours of commercial progress, though often as much never realized.
The gaze of today once again fixed on the target of a burger, fries and root beer rising to the top of the look what's coming to town list set to tantalize us.
Alas however, the return of our burger quest offers a risk to only have our dreams dashed once again ...
Leaving us all to take to the highway, where the famous fast food fare is found but an hour and a half away, making for a pit stop as the city's population prepares for its annual spring and summer travels en masse to Terrace to do its weekend shopping.
For more notes related to the city's commercial sector and rumour mill see our archive page here.
A wider overview of past City Council discussion themes can be explored from our Council Discussion archive.
To return to the most recent blog posting of the day, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment