It’s high time people stopped taking potshots at The Beach Club in this section every time an unrelated development issue comes up in the district. Maybe it is too tall, but it’s there, and they’re not likely to remove the top three stories anytime soon. The people who live there would likely object.
This resort has comported themselves as exemplary corporate citizens in Parksville. They employ from 80 to 130 people year round and pay more than minimum wage, attracting families whose children fill our schools and rinks, and whose spouses work at our golf courses, medical centers, gas stations and grocery stores.
They bring in outside, active money that filters through every shop and service in town, which improves the services available to all of us. And they offer one of the greatest places to meet, eat and enjoy the sunset anywhere on Vancouver Island.
Our downtown beachfront should be exactly that, busy, vibrant and reflective of the entire community it represents. If you’ve lived here long enough, as I have, to remember the old Island Hall, you’ll know that you couldn’t see the beach from the highway back then either, and it was far, far uglier than what’s standing there now.
Please quit picking on The Beach Club, and spend that energy complaining about something that matters.
Dan LaRocque, Parksville