Ladle, still not ratified, denied access to levy
The Loaded Ladle has been treading on eggshells since it received a formal ultimatum from the DSU Oct. 5. The subsequent actions of the Loaded Ladle will determine whether they can continue to exist and serve food as a student society.
In a letter written by Chris Saulnier, president of the DSU, dated Oct. 5, Saulnier wrote “Our legal council has advised that ‘the Student Union not proceed with ratification of the society until such time as the Student Union is satisfied and convinced that the society and its members will comply with the food safety rules and regulations extant in this province’.”
“Once the [Loaded Ladle] has exhibited that they can operate within the rules for a period of time, the Society Review Committee will re-consider the ratification of your group in January.” The ultimatum means they will be unable to serve meals or book spaces and will not be reimbursed for the expenses they have already incurred as a society.
Currently, the Loaded Ladle has an $8,000 tab from staff wages, infrastructure setup, such as the ‘serving mobile’ bike, and the cost of the food, some fresh and some purchased in bulk, which they expected to use throughout the year.
The Loaded Ladle was promised a $32,000 start-up budget from the levy that students voted in last year; however, the DSU is currently withholding the levy until the society is ratified.
According to Loaded Ladle board members, individual students in the society are waiting to be reimbursed for the personal money they invested in the start-up of the society. One core Loaded Ladle member spent upwards of $3,500 on credit cards with a 22 per cent interest fee, expecting to be reimbursed by early September.
Other Loaded Ladle staff members, such as the outreach coordinator and the food serving coordinator, who are non-volunteers, have received no wages except for the donations from students collected at food servings, literally “nickels and dimes” according to Aaron Beale, a Loaded Ladle board member.
The ultimatum letter came from the DSU after a beer-making workshop held in front of the SUB Oct. 4. “The beer workshop had a propane tank and a burner boiling hops and in this letter the DSU said they hadn’t known about that,” says Beale. “But we had told the DSU three different times, once vocally, once over email and once in a phone call, that we would have a beer workshop and that we would have hops being boiled.”
In the letter from the DSU, Saulnier wrote, “The DSU is very concerned with the clearly established pattern of a disregard for policy, regulations, and event booking procedures that the Loaded Ladle has displayed.” For the last two weeks, the Loaded Ladle has been running bake sales as an alternative to serving cooked food. However, the DSU told the Loaded Ladle last week that they are no longer allowed to hold any events under the Loaded Ladle name until the society is ratified.
“We even had to cancel a bunch of non food-serving events that we wanted to run like apple picking and honeybee workshops,” says Rebecca Hoffer, a Loaded Ladle board member.
She says that in order to get a permanent food permit, the Loaded Ladle would need a sink with hot and cold water installed in the SUB. “Health inspectors told us they’d give us one as long as the DSU provides a letter that promises a sink for January and if we get that letter we can start serving right away,” she says.
According to Beale, the sink became an issue after a new health inspector was assigned to the Loaded Ladle over the summer. Last year, the Loaded Ladle only required a temporary food permit as it served only six times in the year. To meet specifications, the sink would have to be closed off from the public and could not be shared with another food distributor.
Another difficulty, says Beale, is the transport of food between St. Andrew’s church on Coburg Road and the SUB to serve food every Tuesday.
“We’re hoping that next year the DSU will choose to open up a kitchen space in the SUB for the Loaded Ladle,” says Sonia Grant, another Loaded Ladle board member. She says communication has been the biggest issue between the Loaded Ladle and the DSU.
“We hear one thing from certain members of the DSU exec. and then another thing from other members and have been penalized for what are really just miscommunications.”
Beale says it’s been long, hard process in general. “We’ve been figuring stuff out as we go along. We have messed up and made mistakes, but it’s just been a process and communication with the union has been complicated.”
The DSU says it will reconsider ratifying the Loaded Ladle in January. Until that time, the Loaded Ladle can hold three food-serving events under the banner of the DSU under a number of conditions including that they are under DSU management. In a response letter to the DSU’s ultimatum, the Loaded Ladle wrote, “We would like to end this letter on a positive note. We see the current situation not as an impasse, but rather as an opportunity—an opportunity to improve communication channels between student societies and the DSU, and to foster a campus culture of interest and engagement in student politics.”
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