Delta will waive berthing fees for boats wanting to sell fish in Ladner.
Chief administrative officer George Harvie announced Tuesday morning that the Corporation will waive all berthing fees for fishermen selling their fish at the Elliott Street Wharf during the trial period for fish sales, which is running until Sept. 30.
“This initiative is intended to attract local fishers to sell their catch at our community wharf for residents to enjoy,” said Coun. Robert Campbell. “After receiving feedback from our fishing community, we quickly reviewed our trial rates and protocol and ultimately decided to waive the berthing fees in order to help boost this new program and get it up and running.”
Local fishermen were upset earlier this week when they learned the berthage rates at the municipal wharf for the pilot public fish sales program can rage from $60 for up to two hours to $400 for anyone docked over eight hours.
"There's only 10 or 15 boats in Ladner and how would they pay $400 a day? It doesn't make sense because we haven't fished for four years and now we're going to make a little bit of money, but our expenses are huge," longtime fisherman Darin Chung said Monday.
Noting there's only limited space for sales at the local harbour compared to the extensive moorage available at Steveston with its large, well established program, Diana Cousins, a senior policy analyst for the municipality, said Delta's pilot program followed the procedures and protocols of the Steveston Fish Market. The rates, however, simply followed the current harbour berthage rates for Ladner Harbour.
"In Steveston the fisherman have an annual licence with the Steveston Harbour Authority and then they pay an additional daily fee for the selling of their catch," she said.
"This was really just an opportunity for Delta to say, 'We didn't have a practice in place where you can commercially sell fresh caught fish off our wharf, so here's an opportunity that we can have for fisherman if they wanted to take advantage,'" she added.
Quickly put together in response to this year's big sockeye run, the fish sales trial program at the Elliot Street Warf will run seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., until September 30th.
Campbell put forward the motion approved by council, saying fish sales off the boat had been attempted at the harbor previously but is worth another shot. Launched in 1989, the Steveston program attracts thousands of visitors annually.
