Council caps off 2019 with focus on body rub parlours, portable signs

On Monday night, Regina city council voted 6-5 in favour of allowing body rub parlours to operate on a permitted use basis in industrial areas.

Councillors heard from a few delegates who were in favour of the zoning move, and one, Shayna Stock, who was against it.

Stock spoke on behalf of three body rub parlour owners who have businesses in and near the neighbourhood. They wished to remain anonymous for privacy reasons, but had left their contact information with council, Stock said.

She told councillors that parlour owners are against the establishments being restricted to industrial areas because of the high cost of moving from their current locations along major arterial commercial (MAC) zones, lack of transit and overall safety issues.

“Traffic, lighting and police presence are less in industrial zones,” Stock read from the owners’ written submission. “There’s been much talk in council about worker safety; this proposal seems to say that all that talk was meaningless.

“If you put onerous restrictions on parlours, many ladies will be forced to follow that path and go underground; you would get more — not less — ladies working in unlicensed locations and in residential areas.”

Following the concerns highlighted in the submission Stock read, Ward 3 Coun. Andrew Stevens put forward an amendment to allow body rub parlours to also operate in MAC zones on a discretionary use basis, meaning they’d first need to go through council for approval. However, councillors were quick to vote it down.

“I think this is the view of council, overall. We’re not necessarily on a unanimous agreement on this one, but there’s a view that residents do not want to have body rub parlours on MAC zones that could be very close to residential (zones) and schools,” Mayor Michael Fougere said. “A way to do this — and other cities have does this as well, including Saskatoon — are in industrial areas. That is fair.”

City administration is now tasked with coming back with a report early next year on the impact of a two-block buffer zone between body rub parlours and places such as schools, daycares and parks.

“People need to see, what does (the separation distance) actually mean? In an industrial zone, could it effectively mean a ban, perhaps, or close to it? So, before we vote on that, we want to see what that looks like,” Fougere explained. “We’ll get a report back that’ll give us a map and talk about the implications of a two-block buffer zone from those areas.”

After receiving administration’s report around February or March, council is expected to move forward with solidifying its licensing regulations around body rub parlours.

City administration to take another look at sign bylaws

Council passed adding a chapter on signage back into the Regina Zoning Bylaw Monday night, along with a motion that would help the city find some common ground with the portable sign industry.

A motion to have city administration come back next year with a report looking at readjusting the regulations around sign bylaws was approved by council.

In August, councillors passed amendments to the zoning bylaw that changed things like where portable signs could be located and how close they could be set up to other signs or billboards.

Since then, it has caused a stir within the local portable sign industry with many warning of the detrimental impact it could have on local businesses.

“Members of council — and the majority — agreed there’s a problem with the sign bylaw,” Fougere said. “But it’s important that the entire (Regina Zoning Bylaw) itself pass and come into force because it relates to virtually every kind of activity in the city; we don’t want to hold it up just because of the sign bylaw, but we also want to see if we can accommodate some of the concerns of the industry and maybe move forward from there.”

Council’s decision to get city administration to weigh in on some changes to the recently-updated sign bylaws, some of which would put it back to the way it was before, was enough to put a smile on the face of Doug Hudgin, the president of the Regina Portable Sign Association.

“I believe a few councillors, due to our personal interaction with them, were more informed tonight. They drove around with us and realized the impact to a lot of small businesses in Regina and we’re profoundly grateful,” said Hudgin. “At the beginning, I thought this was the end of a journey, but it’s not.”

New council meeting schedule

Councillors also voted in favour of a change to its meeting schedule.

Starting in the new year, council meetings will be held on the last Wednesday of the month at 1:30 p.m.

As of right now, council meetings take place on Mondays at 5:30 p.m.

If the meeting runs long, two mandatory breaks will be held: a 15-minute break at 3:30 p.m. and a 30-minute break at 6 p.m.

Before they address council, all delegations will still be required to submit a written brief outlining what they’d like to discuss.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an amended version of the story, revising Shayna Stock’s role during the meeting.