An upcoming planned power outage in Vancouver’s downtown core has a number of business owners outraged claiming the outage will lead to major financial losses.
Waves Coffee House on West Hastings is one of 88 BC Hydro customers that are scrambling to come up with a plan after receiving a notice that Hydro was pulling their power plug on Aug. 28 for eight hours.
“Closing our stores down on a summer day during Sunday when people are out and about, is detrimental to our business because we are in an area that is highly dense with competition,” said Kayvan Rahmati, manager of Waves.
He says the power outage could mean a big financial hit, with the loss of up to 600 customers, and food products which would have to be moved to another store or discarded.
Around the corner at the Ramada Hotel, general manager Paul Lamirande is furious that Hydro gave only 11 days notice, at a time when the hotel’s 80 rooms are full of tourists.
WATCH: Power to be turned off in downtown core
“We have explored bringing in a generator that can operate all aspects of the hotel and the cost to us is over $15,000,” Lamirande told Global News in a statement.
“Or…we will need to relocate all of our guests losing revenue of $20,000 per day as well as the cost of finding rooms for guests at other hotels,” he added.
Simi Heer with BC Hydro said they recognize the problem the outage may cause to customers.
“Of course we recognize that this a huge inconvenience, especially for businesses. We do apologize for that, but the bottom line here is safety is the number one factor in this decision-making and we have to ensure the public and crews are safe at all times.”
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But the general manager of the Victorian Hotel just down the street isn’t happy with Hydro’s answer. With only five days notice, his hotel had its power cut for 12 hours in July — on what he says was the busiest night of the year.
“I think the business practices of BC Hydro…could be more considerate of the businesses that are affected and the consequences that their actions are going to have on them,” Brian McLachlan said.
He said the power outage cost the hotel $6,000. Customers on the Hastings block are worried they’ll be stuck with a hefty bill as well.