by Darren Davidson
The Buzz starts out this month on a celebratory but cautionary note.
With Dr. Bonnie having dropped most COVID restrictions as of last week — with the exception of masks and vaccines — Chambers of Commerce and small business advocates are as excited as anyone that the latest pandemic chapter is drawing to a close.
“It’s great news, just great,” says Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce executive director Tom Thomson, “but we’ve seen positives before.”
“And they were short lived,” he adds.
Thomson says for a lot of businesses, especially those hardest hit, a return to normal revenues and margins “is not going to happen overnight.”
A lot of businesses in hospitality, tourism, and arts and culture have been running at 50 percent capacity, or less, for two years.
Debt loads are unprecedented, and many costs including insurance, fuel and mandatory five-day sick-leave pay have turned up financial pressures. The next six-to-eight months, Thomson says, for many businesses will be critical.
Worth noting too, despite recent weekends of air horns, convoys of four by fours and Freightliners, cheering, jeering Maple Leafed-masses and more flipped birds than a KFC semi truck crash, Premier Horgan says pressure from protesting truckers played “no part” in the province lifting restrictions.
On to more local matters …
Fifty years. Think of it. Half a life, and them some.
The Grypma family tree has grown out on a sunny hillside in Blewett since Georama Growers founders George and Anna put down roots there in 1970, not long after immigrating from Holland with their little kids in tow.
Well, last week, brothers George and Case, Case’s wife Mel, and their staff of 24, held a heartfelt meeting to introduce Georama’s new owners.
Like George and Anna did a half century ago, the ambitious new entrepreneurs have come from far away to start a new chapter of their own lives, with their young family too.
Gurjit and Ramneet Brar quietly assumed ownership of Georama last month. Known as Bunny and Tincy to their pals back in Creston, where they operated a cherry farm since moving to Canada from India a few years ago, the Brar family hails from a long agricultural lineage.
“They’re salt-of-the-earth, very chill and are a very close, hard-working family,” says Case. “We feel this is a perfect match. They understand how important Georama has been to the community.”
“Bunny gave a wonderful speech to everyone at last week’s meeting, that brought tears to our eyes,” Case adds.
The Grypmas will be staying aboard for the next year helping with the transition. And, Case notes, the family will still live just below the greenhouses and fields, on the “little piece of paradise” that George and Anna found back in days gone, but sure not forgotten.
There’s a bit of new info regarding the legendary former Kutenai Landing property.
A proposed lakefront development slated for the three-hectare parcel to the west of Chahko Mika Mall could include a 60-slip marina and a mix of multi-family residential units and commercial space.
Veteran Kelowna developer Mike Culos, who has purchased the property, expects the proposal to be in front of Nelson City Council in late April or early May. Building could start in late August.
The veteran builder calls the property a Class A location unlike any other left in BC, and adds that the project will address a cross-section of Nelson’s housing needs — including seniors and first-time buyers.
In the early 2000s, when the city had considered selling the prime parcel to WalMart for a stand-alone store, dozens of locals were so incensed they staged a rally outside City Hall, laying all across Ward Street and leaving chalk outlines of their bodies to note the number of main street jobs that could have been lost had the retail Goliath acquired the property.
A repeat of the uproar isn’t likely. Culos say his plan for the land is in full accordance with its current zoning.
There’s a unique new family-friendly restaurant on Anderson Street for moms and dads who need a break in the action.
Sky-Lea Farr has opened Acorn & Oak cafe, play space and kitchen.
Farr says the cafe has been her vision since 2016 when she moved back to the Kootenays with her one-year-old. Acorn & Oak offers an area with toys and a space for little ones to play, while parents can enjoy locally sourced goods and take five.
Out with the reefer, in with the re-brand.
The Nelson Cannabis Collective is now Gerrard Station.
After plans for a $14-million four-storey marijuana grow operation on Government Road fell through due to plummeting prices in the legal pot industry, owners Mitchell Scott and Phil Pinfold have officially re-launched their bud business bid as a light industrial commercial real estate venture.
A social media post this weekend states, “Gerrard Station represents the region’s top mixed-use commercial complex to be built in a generation.”
Fair Realty’s Tristan Chart is the rep to call if you have any interest.
The building — whose principal investor is Canadian Music Hall of Famer Sam Feldman, manager of superstar names like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Leonard Cohen — is getting closer to lock-up stage thanks to the work of North Mountain Construction and its sub-contractors.
Some quick news from the adventure tourism sector.
Retallack cat ski and mountain bike resort has added nearly 1,400 hectares to its tenure between New Denver and Kaslo. The province denied Retallack’s request to add limited helicopter ski touring and helicopter access to its original tenure and the new land. The province also ruled that Retallack’s cat-assisted ski touring will be allowed in nearby terrain — except for the London Ridge zone which is involved in the proposed Zincton four-season resort.
Up the valley, not far from the gateway to Valhalla Provincial Park, Baldface has hung a new sign on property it recently purchased as part of build-out plans for its Valhalla tenure, which was purchased from Snowwater Heliskiing. Baldface recently hosted some of the world’s top snowboarders for the second stage of Red Bull’s globally-broadcast Natural Selection event.
The Buzz ends with news that a sweet life spent behind, well, bars, is over, for Hollie Wheeler and Sam Lazenby. In 1990, the pair started Nelson’s Chocofellar out of the Anglican Church in fact. Hollie and Sam have sold the business to Aurelien Sudan and his partner Mark Tomek.
The pair are genuinely passionate about the world’s most storied sweet.
Sudan hails from Switzerland. His great grandfather worked in one of the first Swiss chocolate factories purchased by the Nestle candy dynasty, and co-created one of the company’s first chocolate wrapping machines. He was mentored by the founder of Christopher Norman Chocolates, famous in the ‘90s in New York.
Tomek, originally from rural Ontario, brings business prowess garnered from a legal career spent in various dispatches across the country.
Mark says he and Sudan want to keep the product’s quality high, maintain the brand’s local support, and “do what Holly and Sam did so well” before expanding. Chocofellar has new on-line sales and has added a few new retailers to a list of 12 cross the Kootenays.
That’s it for this month everyone — see you in March.