Rules prohibiting self-serve gas stations will stay on the books in Coquitlam for the foreseeable future unless industry stakeholders can come up with a strategy for improving service for drivers.
City manager Peter Steblin told council that staff resources are not available to do a proper analysis of the regulations and any work on the file would mean re-prioritizing the municipality’s current work plan.
Instead, council voted unanimously Tuesday to refer a zoning text amendment sought by Chevron Canada allowing self-serve at its two Coquitlam locations back to staff. The applicant will then be directed to join other members of the industry in bringing a comprehensive plan back to the city.
When Coun. Terry O’Neill raised the question of whether there was precedent for asking for this kind of work from industry stakeholders, Mayor Richard Stewart responded by saying it was “not unheard of.”
“We are really looking for more of a consensus position from industry before we spend any staff time on it,” Stewart said.
The city’s service station regulations date back to 1959 and the issue around a lack of self-service has cropped up many times over the years. The most recent push came last summer, when Chevron said it would ask the city to allow self-service.
“We wanted to get staff’s attention,” company spokesperson Adrien Byrne told The Tri-City News at the time. “The broad industry has been advocating change. It never really made much progress… Looking at the economics of it, we have decided to go it alone. “
Several councillors expressed an openness to changing the rules but there are still concerns about how the elderly and disabled will be affected.
The split-island model, which has some pumps operating as full-serve and others operating as self-serve, has been proposed, but even that could pose some issues, according to Coun. Craig Hodge. He noted that in some jurisdictions, full-serve is more expensive, meaning those who are unable to pump their own gas would be penalized. Hodge asked staff whether it was possible to look at mandating that the prices remain the same for both services.
“That is a slippery slope,” said Jim McIntyre, the city’s general manager of planning and development, in response to Hodge’s question. “We start getting into setting policy and regulations that affects how a business conducts its business… I would not want to be using the zoning bylaw to get at the price points for full serve and self serve gas.”
For now, the city will await a response from the industry.
@gmckennaTC
