Renos: Delay, delay, Delay
I'm sure anyone who's done renovations before is familiar with the constant state of running into issues you did not foresee. For Ben and I this is our first time doing renos in a commercial space and our first time dealing with the bureaucracy that is the City of Vancouver as small business owners. Needless to say we are learning a great deal, not just about what the City requires from us, but also about how easy it is for tenants to have shoddy work done when a landlord and the City aren’t paying attention.
Here are some things we've learned on our journey with the City of Vancouver:
Building permits and business licenses are tied to each other and you need your building permit to get your business license.
If you need a food permit it will come after you get the previous permit and license.
Just because the previous tenant in a space had a business license and food permit you can’t assume their electrical and plumbing work was done to code. You may be left with the responsibility of bringing it all up to code so you can get your business license.
You don’t need to apply for your plumbing and electrical permit to do the work your electrician and plumber will apply for them.
You will be asked to send the City the same paper work several times by several different people because no one reads your emails. This is frustrating. Keep going, you’ll eventually get an in person meeting with a human who will give you answers.
If you find yourself, like us, in the position of having to update a previous tenant's illegally done trade work, look up the BC Building Code. You can get a PDF online. It will tell you what you, as the tenant, have to pay for versus what you can ask the landlord to pay for.
Often the reason that people choose not to go through the City is because they make it prohibitively costly for small businesses to open, this is very understandable in a city that is already too costly for many of us to raise families in.
I suppose we should have checked out the plumbing and electrical work in the space before we agreed to the contract of sale but what can I say? We thought it was fair to assume the work had been inspected by the City since the business had a business license. We were wrong. I'm glad we're having it all redone even though it does mean delays. When we open I will take comfort in the knowledge that our hot water won't run out, our grease trap won't constantly overflow, our pipes will drain in accordance with environmental standards and our electrical isn't going to harm our staff. That peace of mind will be worth every penny we spend and every bit of extra time it takes to open. The true upside to all of this is that I now know a great electrician and plumber that I feel I can really trust. The electrical work that's already been done is beautiful (yes electrical work can be beautiful) and our plumber has been really helpful through this process. So if you’re ever looking we’ve got the tradies for you!
Check out our Instagram for more pics of our DIY renos. We can't wait to serve you, we are opening soon and we hope you'll come eat with us.
Ben & Jesse
