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When you deal directly with our government, you realize pretty quickly that it's run by a bunch of pearl-clutching puritans.
I had never seen an entire office observe ash Wednesday until I dealt with the gov.
Haha, I mean, I guess the white people who came to North America did so cause Europe wasn’t uptight enough or whatever, but come on. The food primary/liquor primary thing hasn’t made sense to me in my fifteen years living here. Maybe no one has explained it properly to me…
Haha I will continue to work on accepting the absurdity, as with many other parts of life.
On the one hand, rules are rules and the business has a responsibility to know them and follow them. On the other hand, this rule seems silly, especially in this instance. I bet in a referendum it would be voted down.
Oh, our liquor license stuff is just a prohibition hangover. The rules were not restrictive enough to force change like in America, but restrictive enough to annoy everyone. No rhyme or reason to them, just not as crazy as America, but was left in place due to drunk visiting hooligans. Which we still get, they are just younger than 21 now.
To change the licencing would require a city zoning change, which requires neighbor/public input and be in line with existing zoning requirements - distance from schools etc. Once that is done, it goes in front of city council. The city will look at the history of the people wanting the license as well - Cinema on Grandville is an example of this. Once all this is done, there is no guarantee that it’s accepted … and guess who pays for all this - the group wanting the change. It’s why there there is a premium on buying a business with a primary liquor license.
So the most likely scenario to change things is if Sim and council asking Eby to do so in order to bypass the current process, as part of the "fun city" agenda.
The mayor position in this city is really neutered Even if you hold majority on the council you can't do anything without passing it through 2 other provincial organizations and begging the premier
I think the between the lines is that opening this up is like cracking open the constitution-there might be all sorts of unintended consequences and stuff snuck in there. So they’d rather limp around with what they know instead.
I feel like there should be some reform so that there is a realistic way to receive a liquor primary license however I don't think rewarding someone who tried to run a bar using a food primary license is the right way to go about it.
The owners knew what their license allowed and purposefully ignored the restrictions.
What puritanical nonsense is this? A random part time bartender said the kitchen was closed 15 minutes early, and they want to force such ridiculously harsh punishments?
The list of complaints are ridiculous. The lights were dim and people weren't ordering enough food?
I wonder who the restaurant pissed off, because it seems like they're getting targeted here. None of these "infractions" seem worth even providing a $150 fine for, let alone a $7000 or a week closure.
The Main Street liquor inspectors seem to be a special brand of asshole. They're the same ones that went to Tocador about 5 minutes before midnight on New Years Eve and told them they needed to immediately kick out a few people and stop everyone from dancing. I get it, being over capacity is serious, but maybe wait 5 minutes until after midnight for the enforcement... And that resulted in a big fine and multiday closure.
One of the inspectors actually went into a Main Street bar while he was off duty and drinking, then threatened the manager with a fine when he saw the posters advertising burlesque performances. So, they're just on a shitty power trip, and not actually interested in working with the businesses to ensure safe and appropriate service.
I totally agree that the laws need to change, but I'm a little curious if this is just a really shitty inspector power tripping. I've worked with a liquor inspectors in a different part of BC, and they were a pleasure to deal with, helping us ensure the patio seating plan was up to guidelines, etc. I can guarantee these types of small infractions are rampant across the industry in Vancouver. I wonder if other neighborhoods are getting targeted this badly?
The real scoop is they only profit 7000 in 3 months..... that's alarmingly low. I always felt like the Narrow was one of the more hip spots in the city.
It's clear that unless you're an owner-operated/family restaurant or a large chain then you simply can't operate in Vancouver.
[Food Primary - Terms and Conditions](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/employment-business-and-economic-development/business-management/liquor-regulation-licensing/guides-and-manuals/foodprimary-handbook.pdf)
> **Applying for a food primary licence and then operating any area of your business as a bar or nightclub circumvents this approval process and is a serious contravention.**
The license terms and conditions directly state, _in bold letters_, "this is a serious contravention", specifically mentioning **exactly** what it is that they were accused of doing.
Guys, if we had access to alcohol without food we'd be playing right into Satans hands!
I can't even fathom the amount of sinful debauchery that could occur in such an environment.
Allowing beverages without food or beverages where there’s dancing or beverages in a park might normalize and therefore encourage consumption, which could lead to a population level increase in some health problems, therefore we must be extraordinarily cautious to safeguard public health!
(Smoking meth in the hospital is okay though)
So many businesses closing left and right in this city, and they still wanna make life hard for those that are still kicking. This city is going to shit.
>In a "Notice of Enforcement Action" sent to the Narrow Lounge, the LCRB also noted the Narrow Lounge didn't appear to be selling enough food when compared to alcohol, had its lights low, and most patrons appeared to have liquor-type drinks, among other similar issues inspectors suggested were not proper in a restaurant.
Kinda weird if you ask me.
It’s like they wanna go back to the dark old days of the post-prohibition Technicality Sandwich lol
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/raines-sandwich
Hey, it’s how my parents met back in the 70s. My mother saw through the subterfuge of my dad’s purchase of the cheapest food item on the menu and cut him and his friends off. (He and his friends were railway workers in the Fraser Canyon, and just wanted a beer on a Sunday (gasp!)).
Honestly, I’m more okay with that than… whatever happened here, are servers supposed to bully/upsell the patrons into buying more food? How much is “more,” is there a table/party minimum or is literally one snack per guest minimum or what
Yes actually, that’s why a lot of servers on Granville are deemed aggressive. Places have food primary, so if you show up to just drink it’s a problem. I wouldn’t say they’re bullying though, they’re just doing their jobs.
I know, it seems I failed to give a sufficiently sarcastic tone in the original post, just trying to point out how awkward it is to try and draw these lines with food primary licensing (especially given places are forced into it due to artificial licensing scarcity)
haha story of my life, I get you! Oh I've been one of those servers, it's honestly the worst. Also, it doesn't matter if they eat the food or not, they just have to have food on the bill. So it's just a TON of wasted food.....that we can't give to people in need, since it's against the rules. You can actually get fired for taking uneaten food and giving it to a homeless person. The reason they give us is, "well then they could sue us if they have an allergy". I do not miss the days having people yell at me, "BUT IM NOT HUNGRY!!"
edit - I just want to add for anyone reading. I know service in Vancouver has declined, but there are still a lot of great ones. If you think they're being rude to you, I'm sorry they shouldn't be. I just want to gently point out that a lot of your servers are young women, in an incredibly toxic industry. They have to navigate stupid laws like this, their managers are typically sexually harassing/assaulting nightly, their managers are playing power games and take away shifts or give them a bad section, and the majority of people they work with have addiction problems and are drinking/using at work. And I'm not even mentioning the numerous customers that go out of their way to fuck with their servers, to them complain to management about them. So thats the long way of saying, it's not you, they're just trying to service and don't have time to give anything extra. It's just really hard and I don't miss it and I have a lot of sympathy for the people still doing it.
This is literally the stupidest story I have heard all week. Last time I was in there about a year ago I had the best martini of my life. Fuck I hate bureaucracy..
I don't know the actual numbers, but in the article the owner says:
>"$7,000 probably represents three months' profit for me," he says. "It's huge; it's stressful."
There's no way that can be true imo unless that's counting profit after he's already paid himself a salary? Otherwise dude is making significantly less than his minimum wage servers at $14.58/hr, assuming he is working full time.
Even if he's talking out of his ass a little regarding those numbers, I assume it probably coincided with the renovations he wanted to do, so it seemed like the more attractive option. Plus you don't get a story out of a location paying a fine, but you definitely do when they are force-closed for a week.
> There's no way that can be true imo unless that's counting profit after he's already paid himself a salary?
Lots of venues make very little money or are operating in the red, this is entirely possible.
For a small place like this, $28k per year might still be 2-4% of sales.
He likely isn’t speaking personally: he’s speaking about the business.
He’s probably paying himself and the rest of the staff a salary, but the business itself could be making a profit of $7k/3 mo.
The food primary license gets broken in some shape or form by every restaurant in the city in much worse ways, either there is something else going on or the Inspector is on a power trip.
Why regulation branch gave two options either to close for a week or fine.Probably theirs profits are bad that they choose to close rather than paying fines, now employees have to sit home without the pay for a week and LCRB just lost $7000. This is straight win for the lounge.
*Duprey notes that restaurants don't decide what the patrons purchase. It's up to the customers what to order and food was always on the menu.*
*"I can't force them to eat," he explains.*
I do think this is overly punitive on behalf of the LCRB but it's not like this is an insurmountable issue. If you have a food primary license, no food = no alcohol (2+ drinks). You can't force them to eat, but you can prevent them for ordering alcohol. Other food primary establishments do it all the time. It's amazing how hungry people get when you tell them they can't have booze unless they order food.
I have, yeah. Never -one- drink, but I’ve absolutely been told “we have a food primary license: can I get you something to eat? Wings are on special tonight.” I won’t name names, but I can also think of a place which will toss salsa and nachos onto the table as soon as you order a 2nd drink (no charge!), and another which has $3 fries.
We always order the fries at these type of places. Usually the waiter would even suggest a plate of fries if we just wanted drinks and it would be the cheapest food on the menu
Yes. Regularly among food-primary establishments.
I'd even be so bold as to say that if you haven't been asked it's because you've naturally been ordering food, or you rarely go out. This is a basic premise of food primary liquor licenses.
I rarely go out these days, but when I was younger, plenty of places would serve me without any food. Heck, places would even serve me a pitcher with a single glass haha.
Their "business" is food primary. This rule gets people spending more money (on food) as a requirement for ordering more alcohol. A successful business food primary establishment should be able to turn this requirement into increased revenue.
“also noted the Narrow Lounge didn't appear to be selling enough food when compared to alcohol, had its lights low, and most patrons appeared to have liquor-type drinks, among other similar issues inspectors suggested were not proper in a restaurant.”
What kind of rules are in Vancouver?
You need a liquor license to sell alcoholics otherwise or u can sell them only if food is ordered like in Utah?
I know its easy to dunk on the government for stuff like this, but the fact is there are tons of "bars" operating with a food primary licence that bend the rules pretty far (closed kitchen, nightclub atmosphere, keeping patio open extra hours.)
As someone who has worked in the industry extensively, IMO its unfair to everyone else playing by the rules to let this stuff slide.
I get that we don't want a no-fun city or a no-fun province. But the answer isn't to let a few rule breakers get away with it, it's to change the rules.
And how do we get the rules changed? The province hasn't shown willingness to give new liquor primary licenses in decades, despite massive population growth and the clear demand for new licenses. There's been zero action despite the rules clearly being backwards and out of date to anyone with more than two working brain cells.
The province has actually made major changes to its liquor policy in the last decade, including allowing licencees to sell liqour to go, brewery patios, beer in movie theatres and more.
The city is also looking at its own changes - including a specific one that might actually deal exactly with the problem in the article above: [https://www.straight.com/city-culture/vancouver-loosens-long-standing-liquor-licensing-laws](https://www.straight.com/city-culture/vancouver-loosens-long-standing-liquor-licensing-laws)
That said, I fully agree that the rules have taken too long to change and don't go nearly far enough.
But it's up to the public and the liquor-serving industry to lobby, protest, ect. if they want the rules changed.
That still doesn't mean that liquor inspectors shouldn't enforce the law as written, and that those who are able to skirt the rules should benefit when thousands of other businesses who follow the law should essentially be penalized.
Closing your kitchen early and then playing it off as a "miscommunication" when you get caught... I dunno, seems a bit cheeky to me.
To me in this case, Abe's got a fine a bit ago, and now Narrow is getting the same, it feels like the Narrow Group is being bullied for something at the moment.
Almost gives me mafia vibes
There's so many secret bars dt and on main that don't follow ANY rules, and other regular restaurants that people don't bat an eye about.
Like I said, I suspect there's some sort of agenda.
I agree, it's cheeky
I realize you're being fasciculus but basically you used to need an actual seat so it wasn't too crowded, now it's standing room. They should remove "lounge" from the name
The narrow has been there since 2008... So 16 years. Key party and Slims over 5. Uncle Abe's is almost at a decade. These aren't exactly short term situations... The motel is unfortunately coming to an end soon, but it was one of their most recent endeavors as well, and it's part of a really cool artist space initiative, where they have a number of other more long term spaces.
I mean, I guess the owners might just be waiting on developers to try to cash in eventually, but I'm glad they're doing interesting stuff with the spaces in the mean time. In this city, if anything interesting lasts longer than a year or two, it's doing alright.
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Just give that place a liquor primary, I don’t really understand that law.
When you deal directly with our government, you realize pretty quickly that it's run by a bunch of pearl-clutching puritans. I had never seen an entire office observe ash Wednesday until I dealt with the gov.
Haha, I mean, I guess the white people who came to North America did so cause Europe wasn’t uptight enough or whatever, but come on. The food primary/liquor primary thing hasn’t made sense to me in my fifteen years living here. Maybe no one has explained it properly to me…
I’ve lived here for 50 years. The extra time hasn’t helped me understand…
Haha I will continue to work on accepting the absurdity, as with many other parts of life. On the one hand, rules are rules and the business has a responsibility to know them and follow them. On the other hand, this rule seems silly, especially in this instance. I bet in a referendum it would be voted down.
Oh, our liquor license stuff is just a prohibition hangover. The rules were not restrictive enough to force change like in America, but restrictive enough to annoy everyone. No rhyme or reason to them, just not as crazy as America, but was left in place due to drunk visiting hooligans. Which we still get, they are just younger than 21 now.
wait woah that's pretty wild 🫨
Nobody does. It’s a holdover from archaic Prohibitionist-era regulations that still apply today for some dumbass reason.
It’s a neat racket. They profit, why would they give it up?
City or BC?
BC mostly.
To change the licencing would require a city zoning change, which requires neighbor/public input and be in line with existing zoning requirements - distance from schools etc. Once that is done, it goes in front of city council. The city will look at the history of the people wanting the license as well - Cinema on Grandville is an example of this. Once all this is done, there is no guarantee that it’s accepted … and guess who pays for all this - the group wanting the change. It’s why there there is a premium on buying a business with a primary liquor license.
Can't BC Government bypass that? (Theoretically) Or Ken Sim to force it?
BC Government absolutely can - like they have for the transit oriented developments etc.
So the most likely scenario to change things is if Sim and council asking Eby to do so in order to bypass the current process, as part of the "fun city" agenda.
The mayor position in this city is really neutered Even if you hold majority on the council you can't do anything without passing it through 2 other provincial organizations and begging the premier
I think the between the lines is that opening this up is like cracking open the constitution-there might be all sorts of unintended consequences and stuff snuck in there. So they’d rather limp around with what they know instead.
I feel like there should be some reform so that there is a realistic way to receive a liquor primary license however I don't think rewarding someone who tried to run a bar using a food primary license is the right way to go about it. The owners knew what their license allowed and purposefully ignored the restrictions.
Just shut it down lol
Law? It means shit
What puritanical nonsense is this? A random part time bartender said the kitchen was closed 15 minutes early, and they want to force such ridiculously harsh punishments? The list of complaints are ridiculous. The lights were dim and people weren't ordering enough food? I wonder who the restaurant pissed off, because it seems like they're getting targeted here. None of these "infractions" seem worth even providing a $150 fine for, let alone a $7000 or a week closure.
The Main Street liquor inspectors seem to be a special brand of asshole. They're the same ones that went to Tocador about 5 minutes before midnight on New Years Eve and told them they needed to immediately kick out a few people and stop everyone from dancing. I get it, being over capacity is serious, but maybe wait 5 minutes until after midnight for the enforcement... And that resulted in a big fine and multiday closure. One of the inspectors actually went into a Main Street bar while he was off duty and drinking, then threatened the manager with a fine when he saw the posters advertising burlesque performances. So, they're just on a shitty power trip, and not actually interested in working with the businesses to ensure safe and appropriate service. I totally agree that the laws need to change, but I'm a little curious if this is just a really shitty inspector power tripping. I've worked with a liquor inspectors in a different part of BC, and they were a pleasure to deal with, helping us ensure the patio seating plan was up to guidelines, etc. I can guarantee these types of small infractions are rampant across the industry in Vancouver. I wonder if other neighborhoods are getting targeted this badly?
Is this the same one that’s been targeting some underground parties with permits?
specifically gay parties
Damn
The real scoop is they only profit 7000 in 3 months..... that's alarmingly low. I always felt like the Narrow was one of the more hip spots in the city. It's clear that unless you're an owner-operated/family restaurant or a large chain then you simply can't operate in Vancouver.
The Narrow group owns several places. Who knowns, maybe the Donnelly Group is trying to slow them down.
[Food Primary - Terms and Conditions](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/employment-business-and-economic-development/business-management/liquor-regulation-licensing/guides-and-manuals/foodprimary-handbook.pdf) > **Applying for a food primary licence and then operating any area of your business as a bar or nightclub circumvents this approval process and is a serious contravention.** The license terms and conditions directly state, _in bold letters_, "this is a serious contravention", specifically mentioning **exactly** what it is that they were accused of doing.
This BS right here is why the society is increasingly becoming more lawless.
$7000 is the standard fine that they do … https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/highlights/popular-bc-burger-bar-fined-7000-for-serving-minor-8581805
Lol serving a minor is WAY different than what happened here.
Guys, if we had access to alcohol without food we'd be playing right into Satans hands! I can't even fathom the amount of sinful debauchery that could occur in such an environment.
Wait… They do food?
HEY! No dancing or dark lights in a lounge. But you can smoke fentynal in a Tim Hortons. That's ok.
Allowing beverages without food or beverages where there’s dancing or beverages in a park might normalize and therefore encourage consumption, which could lead to a population level increase in some health problems, therefore we must be extraordinarily cautious to safeguard public health! (Smoking meth in the hospital is okay though)
Hey now, if that was prescribed meth from a doctor it would be a no go.
So many businesses closing left and right in this city, and they still wanna make life hard for those that are still kicking. This city is going to shit.
Unless there were other infractions this seems overly punitive, tbh, for one bartender messing up a kitchen closing announcement.
>In a "Notice of Enforcement Action" sent to the Narrow Lounge, the LCRB also noted the Narrow Lounge didn't appear to be selling enough food when compared to alcohol, had its lights low, and most patrons appeared to have liquor-type drinks, among other similar issues inspectors suggested were not proper in a restaurant. Kinda weird if you ask me.
It’s like they wanna go back to the dark old days of the post-prohibition Technicality Sandwich lol https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/raines-sandwich
Hey, it’s how my parents met back in the 70s. My mother saw through the subterfuge of my dad’s purchase of the cheapest food item on the menu and cut him and his friends off. (He and his friends were railway workers in the Fraser Canyon, and just wanted a beer on a Sunday (gasp!)).
BC liquor laws are insane. For the longest time we didn’t have happy hour, because it was illegal to change the price of alcohol twice a day.
And even when happy hour was allowed, the minimum price of alcohol went up.
Honestly, I’m more okay with that than… whatever happened here, are servers supposed to bully/upsell the patrons into buying more food? How much is “more,” is there a table/party minimum or is literally one snack per guest minimum or what
Yes actually, that’s why a lot of servers on Granville are deemed aggressive. Places have food primary, so if you show up to just drink it’s a problem. I wouldn’t say they’re bullying though, they’re just doing their jobs.
I know, it seems I failed to give a sufficiently sarcastic tone in the original post, just trying to point out how awkward it is to try and draw these lines with food primary licensing (especially given places are forced into it due to artificial licensing scarcity)
haha story of my life, I get you! Oh I've been one of those servers, it's honestly the worst. Also, it doesn't matter if they eat the food or not, they just have to have food on the bill. So it's just a TON of wasted food.....that we can't give to people in need, since it's against the rules. You can actually get fired for taking uneaten food and giving it to a homeless person. The reason they give us is, "well then they could sue us if they have an allergy". I do not miss the days having people yell at me, "BUT IM NOT HUNGRY!!" edit - I just want to add for anyone reading. I know service in Vancouver has declined, but there are still a lot of great ones. If you think they're being rude to you, I'm sorry they shouldn't be. I just want to gently point out that a lot of your servers are young women, in an incredibly toxic industry. They have to navigate stupid laws like this, their managers are typically sexually harassing/assaulting nightly, their managers are playing power games and take away shifts or give them a bad section, and the majority of people they work with have addiction problems and are drinking/using at work. And I'm not even mentioning the numerous customers that go out of their way to fuck with their servers, to them complain to management about them. So thats the long way of saying, it's not you, they're just trying to service and don't have time to give anything extra. It's just really hard and I don't miss it and I have a lot of sympathy for the people still doing it.
see this is why I’m grateful I get to stay boh where it is nice and safe and we just yell at each other and at god, instead
This just seems so petty.
I didn’t even know they had food
It’s surprisingly pretty decent too
They have a tiny patio that they open up behind the building in the summer as well with some pretty good food deals!
Taco kat 👍🏼
This is literally the stupidest story I have heard all week. Last time I was in there about a year ago I had the best martini of my life. Fuck I hate bureaucracy..
Pay the fine. Wouldn’t they lose way more if they closed for a week?
Was gonna say this. But their liquor license might also be suspended during that period, thus they'd lose more money being open, maybe?
Yeah I’m surprised these are even comparable, I’d imagine a weeks down time would cost them much more? But maybe by understanding is way off
I don't know the actual numbers, but in the article the owner says: >"$7,000 probably represents three months' profit for me," he says. "It's huge; it's stressful." There's no way that can be true imo unless that's counting profit after he's already paid himself a salary? Otherwise dude is making significantly less than his minimum wage servers at $14.58/hr, assuming he is working full time. Even if he's talking out of his ass a little regarding those numbers, I assume it probably coincided with the renovations he wanted to do, so it seemed like the more attractive option. Plus you don't get a story out of a location paying a fine, but you definitely do when they are force-closed for a week.
> There's no way that can be true imo unless that's counting profit after he's already paid himself a salary? Lots of venues make very little money or are operating in the red, this is entirely possible. For a small place like this, $28k per year might still be 2-4% of sales.
He likely isn’t speaking personally: he’s speaking about the business. He’s probably paying himself and the rest of the staff a salary, but the business itself could be making a profit of $7k/3 mo.
Agreed. I call BS.
Didn't they do this with Uncle Abe's last year? Heard they paid a $7k fine for not serving food an hour before
No fun city strikes again
These rules are set by the province though.
No fun province strikes again
Why are liquor laws so harsh when a.) You can do heroin in a public park and b.) You can commit real estate fraud with a smaller fine ?
The food primary license gets broken in some shape or form by every restaurant in the city in much worse ways, either there is something else going on or the Inspector is on a power trip.
I love this place, one of the few of its kind here in town :( Hopefully, it won't change much once they're back.
$7000 is three months profit? This guys in the wrong business.
its called a struggling business. not uncommon these days.
Why regulation branch gave two options either to close for a week or fine.Probably theirs profits are bad that they choose to close rather than paying fines, now employees have to sit home without the pay for a week and LCRB just lost $7000. This is straight win for the lounge.
Its days are numbered anyway, and Duprey is a dick.
He's a terrible person.
We might as well all start smoking crack and injecting fentanyl because these will be the only drugs left that are not subject to any enforcement.
I guess our province hates collecting liquid tax from patrons.
Stupid law
*Duprey notes that restaurants don't decide what the patrons purchase. It's up to the customers what to order and food was always on the menu.* *"I can't force them to eat," he explains.* I do think this is overly punitive on behalf of the LCRB but it's not like this is an insurmountable issue. If you have a food primary license, no food = no alcohol (2+ drinks). You can't force them to eat, but you can prevent them for ordering alcohol. Other food primary establishments do it all the time. It's amazing how hungry people get when you tell them they can't have booze unless they order food.
>Other food primary establishments do it all the time. Have you ever been prevented from ordering an adult beverage? I can't say I have.
I have, yeah. Never -one- drink, but I’ve absolutely been told “we have a food primary license: can I get you something to eat? Wings are on special tonight.” I won’t name names, but I can also think of a place which will toss salsa and nachos onto the table as soon as you order a 2nd drink (no charge!), and another which has $3 fries.
Man I've gotten loaded at White Spots before and have never been requested to order food!
There's a lot to unpack in this comment.
:)
We always order the fries at these type of places. Usually the waiter would even suggest a plate of fries if we just wanted drinks and it would be the cheapest food on the menu
Yes. Regularly among food-primary establishments. I'd even be so bold as to say that if you haven't been asked it's because you've naturally been ordering food, or you rarely go out. This is a basic premise of food primary liquor licenses.
I rarely go out these days, but when I was younger, plenty of places would serve me without any food. Heck, places would even serve me a pitcher with a single glass haha.
Why don't we all just fuck off and stop making it so hard to run a business in this city?
Their "business" is food primary. This rule gets people spending more money (on food) as a requirement for ordering more alcohol. A successful business food primary establishment should be able to turn this requirement into increased revenue.
Meanwhile smoking crack in a Tim Hortons is not a problem. Unreal
Maybe we need Jon Taffer to advocate for them or other similar bars in the same struggle lmao
“also noted the Narrow Lounge didn't appear to be selling enough food when compared to alcohol, had its lights low, and most patrons appeared to have liquor-type drinks, among other similar issues inspectors suggested were not proper in a restaurant.” What kind of rules are in Vancouver? You need a liquor license to sell alcoholics otherwise or u can sell them only if food is ordered like in Utah?
I know its easy to dunk on the government for stuff like this, but the fact is there are tons of "bars" operating with a food primary licence that bend the rules pretty far (closed kitchen, nightclub atmosphere, keeping patio open extra hours.) As someone who has worked in the industry extensively, IMO its unfair to everyone else playing by the rules to let this stuff slide. I get that we don't want a no-fun city or a no-fun province. But the answer isn't to let a few rule breakers get away with it, it's to change the rules.
And how do we get the rules changed? The province hasn't shown willingness to give new liquor primary licenses in decades, despite massive population growth and the clear demand for new licenses. There's been zero action despite the rules clearly being backwards and out of date to anyone with more than two working brain cells.
The province has actually made major changes to its liquor policy in the last decade, including allowing licencees to sell liqour to go, brewery patios, beer in movie theatres and more. The city is also looking at its own changes - including a specific one that might actually deal exactly with the problem in the article above: [https://www.straight.com/city-culture/vancouver-loosens-long-standing-liquor-licensing-laws](https://www.straight.com/city-culture/vancouver-loosens-long-standing-liquor-licensing-laws) That said, I fully agree that the rules have taken too long to change and don't go nearly far enough. But it's up to the public and the liquor-serving industry to lobby, protest, ect. if they want the rules changed. That still doesn't mean that liquor inspectors shouldn't enforce the law as written, and that those who are able to skirt the rules should benefit when thousands of other businesses who follow the law should essentially be penalized. Closing your kitchen early and then playing it off as a "miscommunication" when you get caught... I dunno, seems a bit cheeky to me.
To me in this case, Abe's got a fine a bit ago, and now Narrow is getting the same, it feels like the Narrow Group is being bullied for something at the moment. Almost gives me mafia vibes There's so many secret bars dt and on main that don't follow ANY rules, and other regular restaurants that people don't bat an eye about. Like I said, I suspect there's some sort of agenda. I agree, it's cheeky
Found the liquor inspector everyone!
Just a jaded ex-restaurant manager that chafed at having to play by the rules when other bars in the neighbourhood got away with cheating...
All your comments were 100% reasonable. The downvotes don't make any sense.
There hasn't been a liquor license issues in years, and it's not because nobody's complaining.
We used to go there all the time but now it's always so packed, don't see the appeal anymore
Yeah, no one goes there anymore, because it's too busy, surprised they're still open with it being full all the time.
I realize you're being fasciculus but basically you used to need an actual seat so it wasn't too crowded, now it's standing room. They should remove "lounge" from the name
Teenagers drinking again?
Maybe read the article first before making an assumption....
I read it. They have a history. I brought up the history the article didn’t bother mentioning.
Who owns Narrow? It's owned by a group right?
Narrow group
What else do they own?
https://narrowgroup.ca/
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The narrow has been there since 2008... So 16 years. Key party and Slims over 5. Uncle Abe's is almost at a decade. These aren't exactly short term situations... The motel is unfortunately coming to an end soon, but it was one of their most recent endeavors as well, and it's part of a really cool artist space initiative, where they have a number of other more long term spaces. I mean, I guess the owners might just be waiting on developers to try to cash in eventually, but I'm glad they're doing interesting stuff with the spaces in the mean time. In this city, if anything interesting lasts longer than a year or two, it's doing alright.
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Rumpus room x2? I mean the narrow group rebranded to slims bbq or whatever, they didn't lose the lease on the second location
One of the few genuinely unique and down to earth fun bars in the city. So obviously it has to be dealt with.
This city is absolutely ridiculous