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Saturday, June 8, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916

CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN

Check one, two... Darren Neufeld with Blake Productions sets up the mikes on the drum set on the entertainment stage for the Relay for Life that starts at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Exhibition Park.

Neighbours oppose proposed pot shop Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca A proposal to open a retail cannabis store in a strip mall near Carney and Fifth is being met with opposition. A 25-name petition and a letter from two nearby homeowners have been submitted in time for Monday night’s city council meeting calling on council to reject an application to open a store at 484 Douglas St. Justin Mousseau and Ted Brown, who own and operate the nearby BX Pub and BX Cold Beer and Wine Store, are the applicants. Concerns raised include the potential for an increase of unruly patrons and illegal activity. Its proximity to a residential neighbourhood and an apartment building where families with young children live is also being raised. “The proximity to nearby high school and elementary schools is a concern as students walk past this location on a daily basis to get to and from school by crossing at the lights at Fifth Avenue and Carney Street,” petitioners add. The property is 422 metres from the Central Fort George Traditional School, 316 metres from the First Baptist Church, 453 metres from Watrous Park, 557 meters from Harper Park, 200 metres from the Moose Family Centre, and 204 metres from the Alano Society, according to a staff report. In a letter to council, Mousseau and Brown emphasize their experience running the BX, saying it is a reason why council should support their proposal. They describe the spot where they want to open the store as a secluded commercial strip mall with easy access and parking and where there are only two other businesses – both of which submitted letters of support as did two other nearby businesses. Staff is recommending a three-year temporary use permit be granted to the applicants to give council time to determine the impacts before deciding whether to rezone the site. That’s not good enough as far as two nearby homeowners are concerned. “We don’t want to be part of an experiment to see whether there will be adverse impacts of a retail cannabis store on an adjoining residential community,” Ken Simonar and Saphida Migabo say in their letter to council.

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We don’t want to be part of an experiment to see whether there will be adverse impacts of a retail cannabis store on an adjoining residential community. — Ken Simonar and Saphida Migabo Council will also consider an application from Zaga’s Hemp Shop owners Ginny and Fred Burnett to sell cannabis out of their store in Redwood Square at 1543 Victoria St. One letter of opposition has been submitted on that application. Helen Sarrazin says it will only create more difficulties in an already troubled area of the city. Staff is also recommending a temporary use permit for the Burnett’s application. Also on the agenda: • Council will consider two options for adding 4,000 hours to the city’s transit service. Staff is recommending council accept an option to procure three buses and introduce frequent service along high-use routes to UNBC and CNC and additional off-peak service as needed at a cost of $265,881. The other option is to procure one bus and focus equally on enhancing peak and off-peak service at a cost of $190,851. Both options are projected to generate an additional $71,136 in revenue. • A revamped sanitary sewer use bylaw will be presented to council. It includes codes of practice for restaurants, vehicle repair shops and car washes and is aimed at reducing the cost of dealing with blockages in the system. • Eleven bylaws adding up to $32.2 million worth of borrowing will be up for final reading after a campaign to force referendums on the items fell well short of the 5,546 responses needed during the alternative approval process. • Council will be asked to authorize borrowing of slightly less than $1.6 million for the Killarney-Sussex-Wildwood sewer extension project. — see PROJECT, page 3

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New trial ordered in P.G. murder after ‘confusing’jury charge, court rules Beth LEIGHTON The Canadian Press VANCOUVER — British Columbia’s highest court has set aside murder convictions and ordered a new trial for three Prince George-area men after ruling the judge’s charge to the jury was disorganized and confusing. In a unanimous decision released Thursday, a three-member panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal erased first-degree murder convictions for Lyle Baker and Dustin Lindgren, and a second-degree conviction for Kevin Zaporoski in the death of 22-year-old Jordan Reno in June 2012. The decision says the victim’s bound body was found wrapped in plastic inside a box on Baker’s property north of Prince George. The Crown alleged Reno was in conflict with several people involved in the Prince George drug scene. The three men were arrested in 2015 and found guilty in June 2017. In ordering the new trial, the Appeal Court says the trial judge’s final instructions to the jury were “defective” for failing to provide a “clear and logical” process for it to decide a verdict. The Appeal Court decision also says the jury was incorrectly allowed to consider certain DNA and blood evidence when deciding the intent of the suspects. Justice David Frankel says the jury had a “formidable task” as it considered multiple forms of mostly circumstantial evidence. “There were eleven possible verdicts amongst the three accused,” he wrote on behalf of the panel. “It was critical that the trial judge prop-

erly instruct the jury to enable them to discharge their task.” He says the organization of the charge failed to provide the jury with a proper framework to assess each of the accused’s alleged part in Reno’s murder. The ruling also examines the judge’s refusal to provide the jury with a written copy of the more than 100-page charge. “Given the number of accused, the number of possible verdicts, the alternate routes to liability, and the fact that the instructions were provided only orally, it was of the utmost importance that the charge provide the jury with a clear and logical step-by-step process it could apply during its deliberations,” Frankel wrote. “This it did not do.” Evidence presented during the trial showed Reno had been severely beaten but forensic experts could not determine if he died of multiple blows to the head or suffocated due to the layers of plastic wrapped around his head. The Crown presented blood and DNA evidence on clothing and on the walls of the trailer where Reno was attacked. While Frankel agrees the spatter evidence could suggest multiple blows and an inference of intention to kill, he says DNA on clothing can’t offer the same consideration. Several other grounds for appeal were also raised, including a concern about how quickly the oral charge was delivered. Frankel agreed with a Crown assessment that the pace was “fairly brisk,” but he ruled out further consideration because the appeal was allowed on other grounds. A date for a new trial has not been set.

UNBC professors accept early-retirement offers Citizen staff University of Northern British Columbia’s bid to reduce senior faculty has produced results. In all, 19 professors have accepted early retirement packages and a further five in UNBC’s School of Education have accepted voluntary exit packages, Barb Daigle, interim vice-president for finance, people and business operations, confirmed this week. UNBC president Daniel Weeks has said the intent was to close the salary gap with comparator universities.

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The overall number of faculty will remain the same, he stressed, with each who moves on replaced with a new professor. Faculty interested had to be at least 55 years old and have been at UNBC at least 15 years as of the end of this year. They will receive a month’s pay for each year of service to a maximum of 18 months. For the School of Education, there were no limits on age and years of service. Those who accepted will also get up to 18 months pay. Departures will be spread out over the next year, Daigle said.

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