Sechelt's Lighthouse Pub management is looking to expand pub operations into the current Magellan's Tapas on the Bay restaurant space, in a bid to make the restaurant space financially viable.
Dale Schweighardt, general manager for the pub and the restaurant, said despite four different "faces" and at least five different menu concepts, the restaurant has not been financially viable in its existence. It has been closed since January of this year.
"It may be there just isn't the demographic in the community for that place to survive off-season when the view isn't as important," he said. "In the summertime, the view is a big hook and people want to be on the waterfront. But the success we've had in the summer months doesn't outweigh the losses we've had in the other months."
Schweighardt is proposing to join the two operations by installing a doorway between the two spaces and, at a later date, joining the waterfront patios with a walkway ramp or an expanded patio section.
"If, for instance, there's a great championship hockey game and a championship football game on the same day, we can have one in one room and one in the other," he said. "Or if there's karaoke on one side and the other's just a normal pub night, people can walk over and check out the karaoke without having to go outside."
The proposal would increase seating in the Lighthouse Pub section by 16 seats and in the restaurant space by 40 seats, for a total of 300 seats.
Some of the advantages of the expansion, Schweighardt said, include the creation of seven to nine year-round jobs for young people in the community, plus boosting local tourism by providing more local entertainment opportunities.
A few concerns, he said, are parking, noise and the possibility of eliminating families' use of the space.
On the parking front, he said, a planned expanded parking area on Anchor Road would allow the establishment to meet parking requirements for the proposed 300 licensed seats.
Schweighardt said he hopes to control noise problems, in part, by designating the restaurant patio section as non-smoking, which he said will stop people from using it late at night. Beyond that, he said, staff need to control parking lot noise by managing people as they leave the establishment.
"We do make a conscious effort at [managing noise]," he said. "And we haven't had a noise complaint that I'm aware of in a year. We haven't had severe noise issues in a couple years."
Finally, Schweighardt said, he's hoping to maintain families' use of the space by applying to keep a third of the restaurant licensed as food primary, which would allow children on the premises. If that can't be obtained, the next option would be to forego the family availability and just have a pub space. The least-desirable option, short of keeping the restaurant closed, he said, would be to operate the restaurant as a restaurant with entertainment.
"The problem there is people can't just come to see a band; they have to eat," he said. "And because they have to eat, it's a discouragement for some people."
Schweighardt says he hopes to have his proposal before Sechelt council's committee of the whole by month end.
