Photo: Martin Weiss
Martin Weiss property at 3990 Swamp Road
A decision by the City of Kelowna Business License Manager to refuse to renew a business license was deemed “unlawful” and “unreasonable”.
In a ruling Tuesday, BC Supreme Court Justice Gordon Weatherill sided with owner M. Weiss Masonry, who sued city and business license manager Greg Wise after the company was denied a 2021 business license.
Martin Weiss filed a lawsuit in March after he was informed in December 2020 that the business he had been running since 1995 would not receive a license for 2021 because “the conditions for this trade license were not met”.
In passing on his decision, Judge Weatherill agreed with Weiss that Wise had no authority to revoke the license.
He also agreed that no reasons were given for the decision and that only the city council, not Wise, had the power to revoke a business license.
Weatherill ruled that the city’s claims that Weiss was using his property at 3990 Swamp Road for purposes other than business were “extreme speculation”.
“They have not presented any evidence contradicting Weis’s evidence regarding the business use of the property and have attempted to justify the reasonableness of their actions by anything other than assumptions, presumptions and inadmissible hearsay.”
The city had argued that while Wise did not have the power to terminate an existing license, since the licenses are valid for a period of one year, granting a license each year “is effectively issuing a new license”.
Judge Weatherill dismissed the lawsuit, saying a letter to Weiss informing him that he was operating without a business license 11 days after a December 7 letter saying his license would not be renewed was evidence for the city’s intention to revoke the business license.
Judge Weatherill concluded that the decision not to renew the license was in effect, a decision to revoke it, the authority of which rests solely with the city council.
He ordered the city to issue Weiss a business license once his $ 25 renewal fee is paid. The city also has to bear costs.
