The city is encouraging owners of an Old Strathcona bar to start cleaning up their clientele after Wooly Bully’s Pub had conditions placed on its business licence Thursday.
The conditions were recommended to the city in a joint submission by the bar owner and the Public Safety Compliance Team (PSCT) in the hopes of stopping ongoing violence and disturbances in and around the bar.
“In the past 18 months, there were numerous concerns and some incidents that were occurring inside and outside of Wooly Bully’s that were brought to our attention, mainly through the EPS Whyte Avenue beat members,” said Nicole Chapdelaine, co-ordinator of PSCT.
Chapdelaine said PSCT met with the owners of Wooly Bully’s and the decision was mutually made to place conditions on the bar.
“We decided to put the conditions on to assist them with giving their staff and themselves some really specific direction in terms of expectations of what to do to ensure the facility is safe and that no one else gets injured,” she said.
Chapdelaine called it a proactive approach.
Shirley Lowe, executive director of the Old Strathcona Business Association, said despite conditions being placed on two bars in the area, incidents in Old Strathcona have gone way down over the past two years.
“We do have statistics that show that incidents are down about 33 per cent,” she said. “There’s a substantial difference.”
Lowe credits the work they’ve done with PSCT and the Best Bar None Program, which rewards establishments for cleaning up their act.
“We have good operators and not-so-good operators,” she said.
“But you can’t tar everybody with the one or two that need a lesson in management.”
