Re - Chip Wagons and planning in Central Frontenac

Adrian O'Connell | Jul 05, 2017

Central Frontenac Council would be foolish to accept the proposition that the township has no business concerning itself about chip wagons which seek to establish themselves close to the junction of Highway 7 and Road 38 at Sharbot Lake.

Assertions that it is not up to the council to decide where businesses choose to locate, and that "the market takes care of that" should be rejected and the concerns raised by Coun. Cindy Kelsey and owners of existing restaurants taken seriously.

As the Scottish philosopher, Adam Smith pointed out more than two centuries ago, in order for markets to function properly, businesses need to operate on a level playing field, a point reiterated by the owner of the Sharbot Lake Inn.

Many Ontario towns and villages have been devastated by laissez faire planning policies already, and gullible municipalities and their taxpayers have paid a heavy price for the unintended, but entirely predictable, consequences resulting from planning free-for-all fiascoes.

Towns like Belleville have had their downtowns and neighbourhoods eviscerated by peripheral mall developments, subsidized at great public cost by cheap farmland, giveaway tax breaks and publicly funded federal and provincial highways. Meanwhile, older parts of the city have become pockmarked by poverty, pot holes and petty theft as is the case in Belleville, where public officials are currently scrambling to undo the damage done by earlier planning mistakes.

Gas stations on Highway 7 at some distance from residential areas are appropriate. The township, however, should not allow Highway 7 at Sharbot Lake to become a soulless ribbon of commerce divorced from the community.

Restaurants are not simply service stations where people refuel, but nodes of community, which foster civic identity and social interaction. They offer entertainment, comfort, including wheel chair access. They host family gatherings and prepare food in a hygienic environment subject to stringent public health regulations. Staff and patrons have access to washrooms, in sharp contrast to the dubious facilities offered by unlicensed, unsightly, unregulated, peripatetic, motorized monstrosities which spew diesel fumes, generate throwaway garbage to fill already overloaded township landfills and, all too often, provide dodgy food.

Lastly, councillors would be well advised to dismiss as utter nonsense, the nostrum that  "the restaurant business is finished" (Frontenac News, June 29). In fact, even chain restaurants like Tim Hortons and McDonalds are being forced to up their game constantly because of public demand for better food and amenities.  Restaurants are increasing in number all the time and quality establishments, like Gray's Grocery and Bake Shop, as well as the other fine restaurants which grace Sharbot Lake, will survive the vagaries of tourism and continue to flourish, provided they are allowed to compete on an equitable basis. They, and the community which they so loyally serve, deserve no less from their township council.