After meeting with the delegations from the Humboldt & District Chamber of Commerce and local businesses, the City has modified the food and beverage policy by reducing the landmark fee.
“After the two delegations came to the committee meeting, the committee decided to change the policy from 15 to seven percent,” said Darrell Lessmeister, director of community and leisure services for the City of Humboldt. “Because going from zero to 15 might be a big jump, so we decided to soften it.”
According to Lessmeister, the original purpose of the landmark fee was to help bring the cost recovery rate of the Uniplex up to 40-50 per cent to soften the burden on taxpayers. Currently, that rate is sitting at approximately 30-40 per cent.
While the seven per cent increase will help, the City won’t know how much until at least a year has passed. In the meantime, Lessmeister said they’ll still be trying to find other way to get better cost recoveries, though they haven’t actually started exploring any other options as of yet.
“We’ll review each year to see where we’re at. If we get more rentals and more stuff going on, it’ll decrease expenses,” he said. “We’d get more revenue if it was 15; with seven per cent we won’t get as much as expected, but we won’t know what it’ll pan out to be because we’re just starting … It might turn out better than expected.”
Some other minor changes include specifications regarding trade show consumptions. To sum up, anyone selling edible goods has to sell it for personal use and not for on-the-spot consumption, much like a grocery store. On the other hand, anyone bringing in food like doughnuts, cookies, sandwiches, etc. that’s valued at less than approximately $150, the landmark fee won’t apply.
For the foreseeable future, Lessmeister said the City will be looking at the best practices of other facilities and see how they can make it work at the Uniplex.
