Wine centre visitors plummet
Colton Davies - Jul 18, 2018 - Biz Releases

Business at the non-profit B.C. VQA Wine Information Centre in Penticton has been collateral damage to a strike taking place next door at Cascades Casino.

The info centre shares a parking lot with the casino, where unionized workers have been on strike for nearly three weeks.

Staff says business is down 20 to 25 per cent compared to usual for this time of year.

“This is our busy season. This is what we gear up for every year. It’s kind of an important time for us,” BCVQA wine expert Kayla Sahara says.

“Our staff hours have been shorter, and some of our part-timers have lost their shifts because it’s just not busy enough to have them on board.”

The wine centre sells and promotes VQA wines made in B.C., and as a non-profit facility all retail profits go back into the community. While the centre provides scholarships and bursaries each year, it also donated more than $300,000 in 2014 to a new wine education program at Okanagan College.

“We’re actually the only store like this in all of (B.C.),” Sahara says. “We’re an information, education centre for our locals and our tourism industry about all of these different B.C. wines.

“We hope people know and tell their friends that we are open, and we’re geared up. We have more wines than we ever have, we have tastings on the weekend.”

Mediation between Gateway Casinos and the BC Government Employees Union, which represents the workers on strike, is expected to resume Friday, which will begin a fourth week of strike action.

In the meantime, Sahara reminds that the centre isn’t associated with the strike in any way, and merely shares the same building and parking lot.

“Where they are striking, in front of the roundabout, it does look like to the customer they’re crossing a picket line to come into our store, but you’re not crossing a picket line to come in here.”


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