Thursdays are delivery days for Dageraad Brewing.
So when brewer Ben Coli walked onto the Production Way SkyTrain platform this morning (March 19), he took a few riders by surprise when he carried on two kegs of beer destined for Commercial Drive.
“One guy thought I was bringing propane on the SkyTrain. Another older lady must have been thinking the same thing. She asked if I was going to blow up the train,” he said.
“I just reassured them, ‘No, it’s harmless beer.’”
It’s not the usual delivery method for Burnaby's Dageraad Brewing but Coli said that in the midst of Metro Vancouver’s transportation plebiscite, it was important for him to raise awareness about the difficulties small businesses face when dealing with congestion.
“Our business has only been open a year and there’s already a noticeable change in traffic. It’s just getting harder and harder to deliver beer around the city,” he said, adding employees at Degeraad are out most of the workday each Thursday just to make deliveries.
“It’s not just the amount of time, it’s the unpredictability of it. You just never know if you’re going to be able to make all the deliveries in a day or not. It’s costing us money.”
Plebiscite ballots began hitting mailboxes throughout Metro Vancouver this week, asking voters whether they support a 0.5% regional increase to the provincial sales tax to help fund transit and transportation infrastructure.
An Angus Reid Institute poll released Monday (March 16) revealed 61% of voters plan to check the No box compared with 26% that support the PST increase.
Lack of trust in TransLink (61%) and general distaste for a tax hike (43%) are the biggest reasons why people are on the No side.
Coli said he understands people are sick of taxes, but as a business owner he believes more investment in transportation is needed to make the region’s economy function.
“This isn’t really about whether you like TransLink or not, it’s about whether we should invest in transportation infrastructure,” he said.
But even if the No side prevails, the brewer said he wasn’t likely to continue beer deliveries via the SkyTrain.
“It’s not really a practical thing for us. Honestly, if all I was doing was going to one place with a couple kegs, it might actually be reasonable. But we have to go to a lot of places and I can’t carry that many kegs on the train,” he said, adding he was surprised how easy it was to do.
“I was a little bit worried about SkyTrain staff stopping me for bringing kegs onto the train but everyone just seemed cool with it.”
TransLink did not respond to Business In Vancouver by deadline when asked about any regulations about making deliveries or transporting large quantities of alcohol on the transit system.
The Angus Reid survey was conducted online between February 25 and March 5 with a sample of 950 Metro Vancouver residents. The margin of error is plus-or-minus 3.3%, 19 times out of 20.
See more at www.biv.com/article/2015/3/transit-plebiscite-beer-skytrain-Dageraad.
torton@biv.com
