Owen Sound Council has voted against allowing a poutine festival to be held in the city.
The possibility was presented to council Monday night (Jan 24) with the recommendation from staff to allow ‘Poutine Feast’ to be held in July in the 800 block of 1st Avenue East.
Poutine Feast is a traveling food festival. Staff said in a report, according to the proposal, it would have had 50 or more varieties of poutine served by six to eight vendors, as well as family games and entertainment. The staff report said depending on the weather, attendance at Poutine Feast ranges from 7,000-12,500.
The report read, “Based on the Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture’s Regional Economic Impact Model, attendance of 10,000 at Poutine Feast over the course of four days will inject between $395,000 and $545,000 into our local economy, benefiting local businesses particularly within the River District.”
According to staff, the city was chosen because of its central location in Grey, Bruce and Simcoe as well as its past experience with hosting similar events. Staff also said it suited the River District Action Plan and could be held in the area of the farmer’s market.
Council was divided on the proposal with four councillors voting in favour and four voting against it.
Those who were against it, argued it would be unfair to welcome out of town food trucks to the area when local businesses have struggled through the pandemic.
Those who voted in favour said the poutine feast would have attracted thousands to the city, which would have been good for local business.
Councillor Carol Merton said this may not be the appropriate timing saying, “Efforts need to be laser focused on recovery.”
Councillor John Tamming compared the proposal to Rib Fest, Summerfolk and the Salmon Spectacular, saying they are all supported by the city and potentially take customers away from the downtown.
Tamming said, “You’ve got to create an image of this as a fun place to be and if you’re bringing in six or seven thousand tourists, yes they might miss their hamburger or their lunch or their beer for that day, it might go to third party vendors, I get that but six, seven thousand people might just remember something called Owen Sound– they had a heck of a lot of fun and they’re going to come back.” Tamming added, “I think it’s very short sighted to say that this is necessarily inimical to the economic aspirations of our downtown merchants and of our eateries. It could help them to have thousands of people remember Owen Sound as a place to come to, so I think bigger picture is required.”
Councillor Scott Greig was opposed to holding the event saying “The amount of debt and anguish, that restaurants– not just in the River Precinct but in Owen Sound as a whole, whether it’s the west hill or the east hill, they’re barely hanging on, and I view this as a bit of a slap in the face to them them when they’re undergoing additional costs the last couple of years even such as tents outside, certain restrictions on what they can do outside and inside.” Grieg added, “I don’t see a lot of real value in this.”
Councillor Richard Thomas noted at the end of the discussion, “This is a great argument that we should support our restaurants and I don’t disagree with that. But what about all the other businesses in downtown Owen Sound? Are they not struggling as well? Have they not had a hard time during the pandemic? Here we have an event that is going to bring maybe seven thousand people, maybe ten thousand people into the downtown. What about all the rest of those businesses? Downtown is not comprised solely of restaurants and food places. We have, as a city been giving support to those restaurants and food places through our patios and our licensing and our Savour Owen Sound promotion. We do support those businesses downtown, but in our rush to protect the restaurants, we’re denying everybody else the possibility of that additional business at a difficult time in the pandemic.”
Thomas added, “We spent a lot of money to create the River District as a ‘people place’ to bring events in, so let’s go.”
Mayor Ian Boddy said he was opposed to it this year, and next year if the pandemic continues, saying, “We’ve just seen our restaurants take too much of a kicking being closed. Employees that are working on minimum wage and trying to live on tips etc. We just went from talking about budget increases and having very high rates of tax with businesses in town that are running restaurants that are paying taxes– to doing this for somebody that’s coming in from somewhere else. Any other year, any normal year, I think it would be really lots of fun. I think our businesses need some support right now and I don’t think they’d be happy if we go ahead with this.”
Council held a recorded vote with councillors Thomas, O’Leary, Tamming and Koepke in favour of it. Councillors Grieg, Hamley and Merton were opposed to it, with Mayor Ian Boddy breaking the tie and voting in opposition to hosting the event in 2022.
Poutine Feast’s website says it will be in Timmins on the dates that had been pitched to Owen Sound. Also this year it is scheduled to travel to Petawawa, St. Thomas, Windsor, London, Sarnia, North Bay, Espanola, Sault Ste. Marie, Parry Sound, Cornwall, Brockville, Wasaga Beach, Picton, Welland, Brampton and Hamilton.