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NS: Lack of ferry seals fate of Yarmouth restaurant
By Carla Allen, Transcontinental Media
Source: The Vanguard, Feb. 11, 2010
[YARMOUTH, NS] — In the first of what could be a potential domino effect of closures, the owner of a long-established restaurant/pub/lounge has announced he is closing because of the loss of ferry service between Yarmouth and Maine.
“When I read that the province was standing firm on no subsidization, that was the final straw. I wanted to give my staff some time to find some other positions,” said Brian Rodney, owner of Captain Kelley’s Restaurant.
The closure, effective on Feb. 20, will affect seven full and part time employees.
Captain Kelley’s Restaurant — Carla Allen photo
There was regret in Rodney’s voice as he described how, although there had been a decline in tourism elsewhere in the province, Yarmouth and the Acadian Shores had a good season compared to 2008, because of several partnership initiatives with Bay Ferries.
Rodney also owns the Best Western Mermaid and has had to lay off two employees to date. At this point in time he is unsure as to the future of several people employed there part time that would normally be full time for summer.
“Hopefully we’ll have a boat, but there probably will still be some damage done because they are not advertising as much,” he said. “With the lack of continuity in service it’s not going to do us any good and the longer that goes on, the worse it’s going to get. We need a long-term plan with a favourable schedule with the boat sailing out of Yarmouth in the morning.
“Even as it is right now, The Cat schedule helps the rest of the province more than us. But I’d rather have some than nothing at all, and right now we’re looking at nothing.”
Captain Kelley’s opened in 1975 and is located near Capri Lodge, formerly the Capri Motel, which is also owned by Rodney.
The main lodge was converted from 27 motel units into 14 senior independent units. The conversion was driven by the cancellation of the Scotia Prince and a change in Bay Ferries’ Cat schedule, which resulted in travellers overnighting in Maine rather than Yarmouth.
Although Rodney says he hopes there is still a tourist season, he is now considering also converting Captain Kelley’s.
“I’m hoping that there still might be something on the federal level. I wanted to hold off until after the rally. I have to maximize the use of the asset and I’m looking at rezoning the property and possibly converting it into apartments,” he said.
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Comments:
Ontario had Rae Days, we in Nova Scotia are entering what I like to call “Dickster Days”
The NDP has killed any chance of a re-election in this province before they even really got started.
I had mentioned this in another article but shouldn’t Percy Paris be replaced. He is the economic development minister and the tourism minister and in one uneducated decision he eliminates tourism and cripples the south shore economy.
I mean who’s side is thie guy on?
I spoke with John Somers today, The Exec Dir of Tourism in Nova Scotia. To date his department has no plan of changing the way they market Nova Scotia.
So our Minister and the Exec director have given up on tourism in Nova Scotia.
I think Brian is doing the right thing, giving up on tourism like our minister and moving on.
I heard one person suggest they would close their business which employed 18 people and head out west.
Well at least they don’t have an NDP government out there.
Also, doesn’t anyone find it odd the the economic development minister had 250 business people come to his office with suggestion on saving the economy but he refused to talk to them.
Graham Steele is going to spend money going around to talk to communities about saving the economy.
My simple suggestion would be to fire Percy and save 500 jobs on the south shore.
But heck what do we know, Percy is a minister.
Have fun on the road Graham, good like offsetting the damage done by Percy the antichrist of tourism.
There is another side to all of this. Not to mitigate the loss of jobs due to the Cat being decommissioned, but, from a marketing and business perspective, Yarmouth was never the right spot for a ferry to land. It is a hellishly long drive from Yarmouth to anywhere for tourists, and not everyone is enchanted by hours and hours of driving while on vacation. In fact, the Cat’s primary marketing ploy was to save hours of driving (which it didn’t really do since you had to go all the way down to Yarmouth to catch it!). I think the government needs to ante up marketing funds for the south shore and the Fundy region to make up for this loss, and needs to give the affected businesses some financial support while they restructure and repackage themselves. I also think that business owners need to stop whining now, and get on with helping themselves recover from this upheaval in their market. Crying and wringing hands will not solve the problem, nor will taking shots at the government.