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Frustration rises for club Legion battles paper trail to licence, building ownership
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, August 7, 2013
RANKIN INLET
Frustration is starting to mount for Royal Canadian Legion Branch 169 Rankin Inlet president Gabe Karlik as he continues his efforts to secure a club licence for the establishment.
Royal Canadian Legion Branch 169 Rankin Inlet president Gabe Karlik says planned renovations to the Legion in Rankin have been put on hold until 2014. - NNSL file photo |
Karlik said the Rankin legion was also attempting to purchase and renovate its building, but those plans were put on hold when nobody had documentation to show who actually owned the structure.
He said the hamlet of Rankin Inlet had a single page on the building, while the legion in Iqaluit had absolutely nothing.
"Our plans were put on hold trying to sort out the ownership issue, which led to us missing the date to start the renovations," said Karlik. "Now we have to wait until next year to undertake the renovations.
"We finally got documentation this past month showing the legion in Iqaluit owns the building, which we knew all along.
"The banks were waiting on that part, so now we've contacted our lawyer to start getting the purchase agreement done so we can buy the building and have the authority to do whatever we want with that lot."
Karlik said the Nunavut Liquor Board also kept changing its requirements to grant the Rankin legion a club licence.
He said at one point the board indicated it wouldn't rule on the licence until the Rankin legion had a new building.
"That caught me totally off guard because it was never part of the deal.
"We were expecting to have a ruling on the club licence this past February and now it's going to be this coming September at the earliest.
"It was one delay after another, and now I'm in the process of submitting yet another application form.
"We've had all the usual stuff taken care of, having received approval from the health inspector and the fire marshal."
Karlik said he understands concern over the old building, but the current legion executive has done everything it can to meet every requirement put in front of it. He said previous executives chose to simply patch the building up, rather than doing substantial repairs to address its condition.
"There's nothing more we can do except wait for the ruling in September, and our new application now shows we're going to
use the old building, as is, until 2014.
"We've fixed some problems with the floor and, if the liquor board gives us the licence like it said it would, we can build our revenues to have more flexibility when it comes to renovating.
"We still have to apply for a permit for virtually everything we do and, technically, our Friday night isn't a special occasion.
"It's frustrating because all we want is a club licence so we're on on board with every regulation."
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