Art Knapp holiday train a no-go in PoCo
Posted November 27, 2018 12:04 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
PORT COQUITLAM (NEWS 1130) – The holiday spirit has taken a hit in the Tri-Cities.
The Art Knapp in Port Coquitlam has shut down its holiday train amusement park after the city threatened to pull its business licence.
Fire Chief Nick Delmonico says the city has been in a battle with the owner for over a year. “They have been doing events on the property for a couple of years now. We’ve been working with them since the inception of that to try to correct them. It’s kind of culminated in the position we’re in right now.”
“There’s a number of permitting issues,” he explained. There’s a number of fire code safety violations — running gas-type engines in confined spaces and around flammables, and different things of that nature.”
Delmonico says the issue came to a head when the rumours started to swirl.
“People didn’t understand why we are doing this now, when this has been up and operating for a few years. The answer to that is we we’ve been trying to work with the owner for a number of years to try to come to a resolve for some of these things. Instead of them getting resolved, they were actually getting bigger.”
“Our intention is not to damper the holiday spirit by closing a popular holiday-time attraction for the community, but our top priority is and must be public safety,” said the City of Port Coquitlam in a statement.
– With files from Lasia Kretzel
