Terrace city council has approved a liquor permit for the Falcon Work Camp at the Skeena Industrial Development Park.
The 200-400 person camp will house workers who would build a natural gas pipeline to feed the planned Kitimat LNG plant.
The city did ask for comment beforehand and received a letter from the RCMP stating that police had no concerns with the planned open hours of 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
One letter from a local resident, Kirsten McCleary, said “workers deserve to have a beer after work if they desire. I have no problem.”
But another writer, Greer Kaiser, opposed the permit approval, saying she’s had bad experiences with passengers at Northwest Regional Airport.
“Every single flight I have been on either coming or going to Terrace in the last 2.5 years has been riddled with intoxicated camp workers,” wrote Kaiser, adding there’s been foul language and misogyny.
Councillor Sean Bujtas spoke to Kaiser’s concerns, saying that the planned open hours of the lounge, means that such unfortunate conflicts wouldn’t arise very often because outgoing flights from the Northwest Regional Airport generally don’t happen during those hours.
Falcon applied to the provincial liquor branch for the permit early last year but the city requires that it be consulted first, leading to its request for comments.