By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle
An institution of Gallagher Lake since 1959, Ye Olde Welcome Pub, lay dormant after its closure on Jan 15, 2023 for reasons Mike Whittaker, former lease owner who ran the pub, says were out of his control.
The Times Chronicle spoke with Whittaker who related the circumstances as he sees them, behind the closure of the pub.
Whittaker begins by saying he is in the process of bringing legal action against the insurance company he engaged to provide him with “business protection insurance”. According to Whittaker, the company failed to come through in any meaningful way, costing him $60,000 out of his pocket, and resulting in the pub closing down. He will be suing for loss of income for the remainder of his contract and any outstanding debts he has incurred.
The problems began on Aug. 26, 2022 when the pub experienced a fire in the kitchen. It was a range fire, which are the large stovetops used in restaurants. “We had about 30 people in the pub for lunch. My manager was in the kitchen. He saw it, and he hit it with the foam extinguisher, thought it was out, about five minutes later it flared up again,” Whittaker explained.
When it flared up again, the building was already evacuated. Whittaker had to run over from his nearby house with a dry chemical fire extinguisher because the manager had already used the foam extinguisher. “The range hood fan was going, so the dry chem went everywhere.” All things, even the bottles up front with the pour spouts on them were contaminated, Whittaker said.
Whittaker claims that the insurance company has been ignoring him since day one. “My biggest complaint, what I want people to understand, is your business interruption insurance is not worth the paper it’s printed on. Six months down the road I am still waiting for help,” Whittaker said with conviction.
Ye Olde Welcome Inn. Contributed photo.
Whittaker contacted Canadian Restaurant Supply after the clean up process was finished to order a new range. But the insurance company would not pay for it, only promising reimbursement if he purchased it, and the piece is not cheap, running about $20,000. But the real issue was with the incurred costs of being closed down, something business protection insurance is intended to cover.
“They had no problem taking the premiums out of my account, but not giving me any assistance at all to get that pub back open . . . It’s been six months! We had to close on Jan. 15. We just can’t keep hemorrhaging money.”
“Had it [the range] been ordered in August when I needed it, I would have had it in two weeks. Today I am not going to get it till March 15, 2023, so my wife and I, we put $60,000 out of our own pocket into keeping this thing open for three months, he continued.
He says the insurance has provided him with a couple of checks, but nothing even close to the costs incurred. Whittaker explained he received $2,200 for food spoilage sometime in late September. In addition, he explained that he received around $14,000 which didn’t even cover the mortgage payment, which alone comes to $21,000 for three months.
Whittaker said he simply wanted to get his story out and tell people that he did not just give up, he and his family were extremely passionate about the business, but they could not keep hemorrhaging money when the business protection insurance failed to provide.
Ye Olde Welcome Inn around Christmas time. Contributed photo.
“I am a retired ship’s captain. For 30 years, I was piloting ships around the world. I have a pension, I was just bored.” The idea of purchasing the pub came to him and his wife one night while sitting around a fire.
The dream to open a local pub when on the brink of retirement, and serve the community has turned into a nightmare. “I just wanted to be treated fairly . . . I have given my life to this thing,” he stressed.
The business was built in 1959 as an English pub. Whittaker recalled that he moved here in 1967, at the time his father worked in Oliver and Penticton. “As I grew up I started going to Ye Olde Pub as a teenager,” recounting fondly his memories of the pub.
His desire was not only to own the pub, but to serve the community. “We have given over $50,000 back to local charities since we opened. We have done Highway of Healing, food banks, Pause for Claws, and we were the Gallagher Lake pet food bank,” he says of the pub’s charity work.
