Again south of the Fraser River the editor of the Delta Optimist weighs in on the need for his morning “double double”. And he is not in a mood to be trifled with. In a surprising 4 to 3 vote Delta council defeated an application to “build a Tim Hortons on a vacant lot on Ladner Trunk Road just east of 64th Street.” And the editor states “When you tell people from outside Delta that your town doesn’t have a Tim Hortons, their incredulous response usually includes a query about whether you also lack indoor plumbing. ”
Kudos to Delta Council who didn’t want to build this ode to idling close to single family houses. This Tim Hortons was a functioning “fuel up drive through ” facility with just a hat trick of seats inside so you wouldn’t get comfortable.
The drive through facilities particularly impact small communities with populations of less than 15,000. I’ve seen a similar Tim Hortons drive through in Kensington Prince Edward Island take out the winter social spot of that small community and close out the adjacent tea shop. In Arnprior Ontario there is a 24 hour drive through, but there is also a massive eat in facility that has become the farmers’ late night hangout and a place that teens can gather.
Those fast food places love drive throughs. They make a lot of money for minimal customer service and time, taking your money in one window and passing the french fries out the other. Not only are there huge profit margins, but 65 per cent of McDonalds sales in the USA are through those drive in windows, and now 80 per cent of new McDonalds feature the drive through option. Drive through clientele are regular customers who buy fast food 25 to 30 times a month. As an industry insider posits “Most drive-thru customers are just stopping to fill their gut”. Drive through restaurants pride themselves at dealing with a customer within a specified time frame (normally around 200 seconds) and pride themselves at breaking records by pushing through the most cars served an hour.
There are limited sociability aspects in drive through fast food restaurant and certainly no way these facilities add to community placemaking. They are perhaps the sports car of fast food, whittling down the time needed to deal with pesky customers by not even allowing them to get out of the car.
But back to the defeated Ladner Tim Hortons. The editor of the Optimist misses the fact completely that a drive through mug of motordom does not a community make. His suggestion: “If a 24-hour drive-thru is indeed a deal breaker, perhaps the hours could be reduced or some other modifications made. Something needs to happen because, my dear Delta council members, Ladner needs a Tim Hortons.”
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Reblogged this on Sandy James Planner.
Gawd. There used to be a drive-through DQ in my neighbourhood. Now it’s a sit-in DQ restaurant. The neighbourhood never collapsed. It’s only a matter of time before they sell the lot for better uses.
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Hi Alex. The drive throughs particularly impact small suburban communities with smaller footprints. The communities mentioned have populations of 1,500 and about 8,000 respectively.
Thank you for posting this.
In 1986 I was the planner for the Hastings Sunrise neighbourhood and the East Hastings neighbourhood had been impacted by a drive through that Burger King had built near Renfrew and in particular it impacted a single family home where there lived a senior that had to listen to people ordering take out as the microphone and order stand was located right by her bedroom. With our commercial streets backing on homes and places where people want to sleep, they did not below there.
So as part of the rezoning of Hastings Street between about Nanaimo and Renfrew we implemented new zoning that encouraged pedestrian-oriented stores and restaurants. The neighbourhood wanted restrictions on drive throughs because they were impacting the folks living nearby. So on Hastings and many other locations like W4th, Commercial Drive, West Broadway, drive throughs were no longer permitted.
So Vancouver Council chose to not permit ‘Drive throughs’ on main streets that are for pedestrians…Gordon Price was on Council at that time and I recall at the public hearing there was very little debate about the zoning change….Council agreed and I recall the vote was unanimous for a change that applied to many shopping areas where people walking were predominant.
Vancouver led the way on this initiative and our limits on ‘drive throughs’ for areas that were focused on folks choosing to walk to their local stores and restaurants.
So now, in Vancouver the only places you can have a ‘drive through’ are located in industrial areas. Michael Harcourt was our Mayor and Council was made up of member of the Civic Party, Team and the NPA and as I recall the decision was unanimous that these ‘drive throughs’ do not belong in neighbourhood shopping areas that primarily serve those walking to the stores and restaurants.
That’s a good thing and it was a good decision 30 years ago.
I think you’ll find the City removed ‘drive through’ from industrial areas several years ago. The last two were added to Terminal Avenue and Powell Street (both Starbucks), but the potential for vehicles blocking the street, and the idling involved were both contrary to the direction City policy was headed.
When the new Tim Hortons was added to Terminal Avenue in 2010, they could not have a drive-through, but seem to have survived nevertheless. One unintended consequence of the policy may be that some of the remaining restaurants that do have a drive-through, like the Main and Quebec McDonalds, stay around longer than might be expected because they couldn’t have a drive-through if they were redeveloped.