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Dog grooming business digs up new home in Central Saanich

Pooch Parlour had previously operated illegally out of Sidney industrial zone
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Owner Kathy Banks (front), employees Kaylyn Paterson (left) and Sherry Bell (right), and Banks’ husband James Anson were all smiles earlier this spring when Sidney councillors signalled support for zoning and OCP changes that could have allowed the business to operate in an industrial-zoned space. However, a legislative reversal led Banks to seek space elsewhere. (Black Press Media file photo)

A Saanich Peninsula entrepreneur who lost a bid to convince Sidney council to change an industrial zoning designation in West Sidney plans to re-open her dog grooming business in Central Saanich.

Kathy Banks announced Pooch Parlour is setting up a new space at 7135 West Saanich Rd. in the heart of Brentwood Bay and hopes to open in early May.

“It’s pretty,” she said of her new space. “I’m super-excited. I just can’t wait to get back to work. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

Banks is still setting up her new space but will update the public about when her two-month closure will officially come to an end.

The groomer rejected an offer by Sidney council to apply for a temporary use permit to reopen in an industrial space on Malaview Avenue West.

Her business was shut down there in March after Banks, who operated for years elsewhere in Sidney, applied in January 2022 to renew her business licence at the new address. Staff told her the proposed use for the space, personal services, did not comply with the M1 zoning.

RELATED: Sidney councillors flip on initial support for dog grooming business

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While Sidney’s committee-of-the-whole initially recommended that council support her application to amend the OCP and zoning for the location, Mayor Cliff McNeil-Smith and Coun. Scott Garnett switched their committee-of-the-whole votes, joining Couns. Barbara Fallot and Terri O’Keeffe in opposing the recommendation.

Council instead passed a motion to rezone the space on Malaview for temporary use, while inviting Banks to apply for a temporary use permit good for one year from its issuance, a process not without added costs, bureaucratic hurdles and stress, Banks told Black Press Media afterward.

In the end, she chose not to pursue overcoming those hurdles and sought suitable space elsewhere on the Peninsula.

Black Press Media reached out to Banks for comment.


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wolfgang.depner@peninsulanewsreview.com



Wolf Depner

About the Author: Wolf Depner

I joined the national team with Black Press Media in 2023 from the Peninsula News Review, where I had reported on Vancouver Island's Saanich Peninsula since 2019.
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