BRAMPTON
Bramalea City Centre may be one step closer to getting to stay open on Family Day. The Ontario Municipal Board has got on board with the mall’s contention that it is a major Brampton tourist attraction. This backing was no surprise as last year the OMB ruling granted Bramalea permission to operate on most statutory holidays, Canada Day and Thanksgiving. Two Brampton residents Rudy Ball and Peter Gardner appealed a Region
of Peel council decision to grant the mall exemption status for Family Day. Speaking before the OMB panel in Brampton on July 4, both men argued council did not properly consider the repercussions of it decision and that no exemption should ever be granted under the act. The pair scoffed at the notion that the mall is actually a tourist attraction. Ontario’s Retail Business Holidays Act grants exemptions to retail areas deemed “tourist friendly.” About 12 million people visit Bramalea City Centre each year and the shopping mall, using customer surveys and other data, figures tourists make up nearly half that number. By the mall’s definition, a tourist can be anyone living outside of Brampton’s primary and secondary trade areas, which technically can include Mississauga, Caledon and other neighboring communities. Mall representatives apparently had conducted quite a scientific study to prove that Bramalea was a top tourist attraction. And closing it, could result in the city losing thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Brampton’s largest mall has spent the last few years locked in OMB hearings over holiday shopping status. The mall has enviously watched Mississauga’s Square One raking in the profits that came when they managed to land exemption status from Regional Council several years ago. Can-India asked some local shoppers at Bramalea City Centre what they thought about the exemption sought for the mall. Samira, a student says that malls should be open on Family Day because it offered young people a place to ‘hang out’, do a little shopping and socializing on a holiday. Manjeet Singh, a thirty-something shopper said he had no objection if the mall stayed open on all days including Christmas and New Year. “Closing the malls on public holidays makes it inconvenient for those who want to get shopping out of the way,” he said. One part-time associate working at a store in the mall said working on a public holiday sucked. “Because we are part-time, all the seniors book their time off, if we say no to working on a holiday, we end up looking bad. So it ruins our family plans, that too on Family Day,” he said on condition of anonymity. On the point of Bramalea City Centre being a tourist attraction, even Bramptonians find it hard to believe. “Maybe they see so many new Canadians from all over the world wandering about the mall looking lost and think they must be tourists,” said another shopper. It is unlikely genuine shoppers from across the border would decide to spend quality time at a mall shopping when they could well be exploring the historic parts of old Toronto.
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