Visitors to White Rock’s waterfront have one more choice for a late-night drink, following council support of a liquor-licence extension for Deluxe Restaurant.
The restaurant’s operators had asked the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch to extend the business’s existing Monday-Sunday license by an hour, until 1 a.m. Following a public hearing July 23 in which no one spoke against the request, city council backed the application.
LCLB approved the extension Aug. 8.
The recommendation to indicate pre-approval – via a resolution to the LCLB – was “a little unusual,” said Paul Stanton, the city’s director of planning and development services. It was made to ensure Deluxe, at the corner of Balsam Street and Marine Drive, could benefit from the change as soon as possible.
“The business in question would lose pretty much the whole summer to wait,” Stanton told council July 9.
The resolution is a requirement of the licensing branch whenever a request for permanent changeis made.
In explaining staff support, Stanton told council the extension would encourage tourism and add to the vibrance of the East Beach district.
Deluxe, he added, has not been a source of problems in the nearly three years it has been open. Five of eight establishments within three blocks along the waterfront strip are already open until 1 a.m.
