Yellowknife (Feb 18/04) - A Yellowknife bar owner is complaining liquor inspectors are overzealous.

Gordon Wray, co-owner of the Black Knight pub, called the recent closure of The Right Spot Bar and Grill by the Liquor Licensing Board "heavy handed and far in excess."

The bar was closed by the board for 18 days and fined $2,000. Wray said if one equates the number of days lost in revenue, it could total between $60,000 and $70,000.

"The punishment does not fit the crime," he said. "You have to do a lot to get that much of a fine."

Wray said liquor inspectors have "lost all sense of reality and perspective" with regard to inspections of bar establishments.

"We're not being inspected any more, we're being harassed," he said of the two to three visits per week he and other Yellowknife bar owners get from inspectors.

Wray compared the Yellowknife experience to the rate of inspections given to bars in Alberta. Last year, he said there were 16,000 inspections of 6,100 licensed establishments to the south -- or about 2.5 per bar, per year.

"In the Northwest Territories, 7,000 inspections were done on 140 licensed establishments," he said.

John Simpson, chair of the Liquor Licensing Board, said research is currently under way to determine how many inspections are being done as compared to the south.

"It shouldn't matter how many inspections are done if there are no violations," he said.

While there are no guidelines in place as to how many inspections are done within a certain time span, Simpson said all licensed establishments are rated either high- or low-risk which can lead to different rates of inspection.