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POLL: DQ owner stresses safety & ease for customers on 6th Ave.

May 23, 2013 | 12:12 PM

Prince Albert Dairy Queen owner Trent Kachur is voicing his concern around access to the Sixth Avenue East location.

Kachur sent a letter to city council asking for a partial removal of the median in front of his business, which was discussed at Monday’s executive committee meeting.

He explained the location of the median not only is an inconvenience for customers traveling northbound on Sixth Avenue East, but also for the businesses beside his location such as JG’s Collision Centre and Accra Lock and Safe Company. He hopes the city can remove half of the median that would still allow a good distance of concrete towards the Walmart intersection.

“People are cutting through their driveways and going at quite high speeds and not going slow enough and there’s lots vehicles who might be doing U-turns and everything else like that and you might not see a pedestrian and things like that,” he said, adding it is a big safety issue and removing the median would be “safer and better.”

Customers are also asking for the ability to turn left on Sixth Avenue East when heading northbound, he said.

“People want the shortest route to go and they want easier access and maybe that’s not a complaint, but that’s just kind of their opinion [and] they let us know ‘oh you know it would be nice to turn in.’”

Kachur cited benefits to this change for not only his advantage, but the city’s as well, which he thinks will make snow removal easier for city crews.

But at Monday’s meeting, Mayor Greg Dionne did not agree. He expressed his frustrations, saying the median didn’t seem to be a problem when the Dairy Queen was looking at the location and feels it is safer to keep the median where it is due to heavy traffic flow around Cornerstone.

Council will vote on Monday and Dionne is requesting a recorded vote for this matter, “Because I am not going to be held liable if somebody gets hurt because we removed the median for the convenience of an ice cream cone,” he said on Tuesday.

Kachur said he will be there to hear the outcome.

“We are in a good location, we knew that when we bought the location that the median was there and I’m really hoping that the city will take care of the businesses and we do think it would help out locations out if there was access to turn in here.”

sstone@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahstone84