Streamlined patio permits, lower fees promised by Winnipeg mayoral candidate Rick Shone

Winnipeg mayoral candidate Rick Shone is promising to make it easier for businesses to get their patios approved.

Shone, who owns outdoor retailer Wilderness Supply, promised Monday to streamline the permitting process for patios.

During the first two years of the pandemic, the City of Winnipeg relaxed some of its rules governing patios to allow businesses to bring in more revenue during times when customers were not allowed to sit indoors or were less willing to breathe the same air as strangers.

Shone says the city reverted to bureaucratic form this year. He is promising to move the patio permitting process online, especially for businesses that had the same patio approved the previous year.

"The plan here would be to basically automatically approve any patios that had happened in the past,simply with an automatic online approval process," Shone said in an interview.

Shone also pledged to reduce fees for patio permits.

Through the first three months of Winnipeg's six-month mayoral campaign period, Shone has made more announcements than most of the other candidates in the 14-person race to succeed Brian Bowman. Last week, for example, he promised to explore allowing alcohol consumption in parks.

He said he is not discouraged by a Probe Research poll that suggested he only had the support of three per cent of Winnipeg voters in July.

He called that survey "a name-recognition poll" and suggested he can still make inroads with Winnipeg voters.

"Somebody like me who's not a politician and not an insider,I've got a lot of work to do toget my name out. I'm typically not the best self-promoter. I'd rather put my head down and do the work." he said.

"When wesaw that poll come out, we met with the team the other day and said August is a big month, let's go hard."

The other candidates for mayor are Idris Adelakun, Rana Bokhari, Chris Clacio, Scott Gillingham, Kevin Klein, Shaun Loney, Jenny Motkaluk, Glen Murray, Robert-Falcon Ouellette,Jessica Peebles, Govind Thawani, Desmond Thomas and Don Woodstock.

• More from CBC on the Winnipeg election

Candidates must complete the nominations process in September in order to appear on the Oct. 26 ballot.

Vacant Winnipeg seat finally has a candidate

People inCharleswood-Tuxedo-Westwoodnow have at least one person to vote for on election day.

Brad Gross, a real estate agent, is the first council candidate to register a campaignin the southwest Winnipeg ward.

The race is wide open because Coun. Kevin Klein is running for mayor this year.

Gross finished third in 2010 mayoral race, collecting just under two per cent of the popular vote.

In 2018, he set his sights on council's Old Kildonan ward. He finished third, with 19 per cent of the vote.