Penticton seeking $630,000 of back pay from Lakeside Resort

PENTICTON — A defective power meter allowed one Penticton business to receive more than half a million dollars worth of electricity for free. The City of Penticton is now chasing after the money and has launched legal action.

From the fall of 2009 to the spring of 2015, the Penticton Lakeside Resort has been underpaying its electricity bill because the meter wasn’t measuring the full usage, according to the civil notice of claim.

The city supplies electricity to residents and businesses. The lawsuit says an inspector estimates the hotel owes the city approximately $631,104.93.

“It’s a large chunk of money that all the utility users would’ve had to pay Fortis already. So we’re trying to recoup some of that money from the Lakeside,” says Mayor Andrew Jakubeit.

According to the lawsuit, the city didn’t realize the meter was under-reporting consumption until the start of 2013, when staff went to the hotel to replace one of the meters. In order to solve the issue, the hotel would have had to shut off power to the entire property.

The mayor says the owner wanted to find a date that would impact guests the least, and around the same time, city hall was having turnover so the problem wasn’t finally fixed until two years later.

“In essence, it sort of fell through the cracks until 2015, when we did a voltage upgrade that’s when it was discovered it still wasn’t rectified,” says Jakubeit.

A Penticton bylaw states a council cannot provide any benefit or advantage to a business, including an exemption on a fee. Therefore, the city has filed the lawsuit to get the money back or else it would be breaching that bylaw.

David Prystay, the Lakeside owner, has declined to comment, saying the matter is now before the courts.

A response to the lawsuit has not yet been filed.