Holiday shopping will go ahead in the Glebe and at Lansdowne Park as of Thanksgiving weekend after the Ontario Municipal Board has rejected an application from the Ottawa and District Labour Council to reverse city council's decision to give businesses in the area a tourist designation.
While the Glebe BIA says it's been able to prove that it's a significant tourist destination, there are concerns for what this may mean for other BIAs.
"If you don't respect the difference between your central tourism area downtown and everybody else then you're on a really slippery slope," Councillor Rick Chiarelli told CFRA's News and Views. "As soon as you allow it for the Lansdowne area or the Glebe area then others are going to come forward with very similar arguments and it's going to be hard to say no."
That's a concern shared by Ottawa and District Labour Council President Sean McKenney, who fears this could be bad news for workers in the capital.
"We know for sure that there are business improvement areas looking at it," he says, adding the organization is "disappointed," with the municipal board's ruling.
"Certainly those workers in the Glebe will not be afforded now the opportunity to not spend those six days with their families."
Councillor Riley Brockington says if you want to give ONE area outside of downtown a tourist designation, you have to do it for every BIA.
"I think if you have merchants that want to open on stat holidays let them make that decision," he said.
Council's request for the Glebe's tourist designation came just over a year ago after the newly opened Whole Foods at Lansdowne was fined for staying open on Good Friday.