Victoriaville shows the muscles. Faced with the possibility of seeing the branch of the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) leave its city center, the municipality announces that it will adopt a by-law to block the path of the state company.
What there is to know :
- The Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) wishes to move its branch from downtown Victoriaville to an area on the outskirts.
- The mayor of the municipality, Antoine Tardif, publicly denounced the decision of the state company last week, believing that it is in total contradiction with government guidelines in terms of land use planning.
- Indeed, Quebec advocates in its National Architecture and Land Use Planning Policy (PNAAT) the importance of revitalizing regional city centers.
During a municipal council meeting Monday evening, Mayor Antoine Tardif presented a draft regulation which could be adopted as early as mid-October in order to modify the zoning of the municipality.
This modification would have the effect of “prohibiting businesses whose use is solely related to the sale of alcoholic products except in the areas making up the city center and the regional commercial center located along Arthabaska Boulevard.”
In other words, everywhere except where the two SAQ branches in Victoriaville are currently located.
“As municipal elected officials, we have the power to develop our territory according to our zoning regulations to identify the different uses that we see for different types of businesses,” explained Antoine Tardif in a speech to the municipal council.
“In this case, we are clearly specifying the places where we see businesses specializing in the sale of alcoholic products developing in our territory,” he continued.
The SAQ sticks to its positions
This announcement follows a public outing on his part last week to denounce the planned move of the SAQ branch from the city center of his municipality to a peripheral area, a decision by the state corporation in complete contradiction with the government’s orientations in terms of territorial development, according to him.
The City’s tactics, announced Monday evening, did not, however, seem to shake the SAQ. A spokesperson for the Crown corporation, Geneviève Cormier, confirmed that she still intended to move forward with the move of the downtown branch.
“We understand the concerns of the mayor of Victoriaville and are sensitive to them. That said, we maintain our intention, because the environment sought when we establish an SAQ branch remains to be at the heart of our customers’ shopping journey, in complementarity with the sales areas for food products,” she said. explain.
The Crown corporation has not indicated whether it would consider challenging the new regulation in court if Victoriaville does indeed move forward.
The court test
If so, there is a good chance that the regulation will end up in court, where it could easily be invalidated, estimates the principal lawyer at Municonseil, Mario Paul-Hus, who has around forty years of experience in municipal law.
“We always say that a municipal by-law should not only target one person. […] “To adopt a measure that prohibits the SAQ from moving does not pass the test,” he says, specifying, however, that attention must be paid to the way in which the regulations are written.
The City of Victoriaville specifies that it consulted legal experts before presenting this draft by-law and says it is confident about its legality.
A mechanism has also been provided to allow exceptions to the rule for a bar, for example, which would like to establish itself beyond the limits of the city center. It would be enough for its promoters to submit their project to the town planning committee, which studies them on a case-by-case basis and can recommend certain ones.
A call to the minister
The Victoriaville municipal council also appealed to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Andrée Laforest, to intervene in the matter Monday evening.
Municipal elected officials adopted a motion asking the Legault government to urgently modify the State Corporation Governance Act in order to force the SAQ and its colleagues to respect its orientations in terms of land use planning.
The office of the Minister of Finance and head of the SAQ, Eric Girard, announced on Tuesday that such a modification was not planned.