‘Hang onto a piece of paper for more than 20 years?’: Red tape hiccup keeps family restaurant closed

A New Brunswick restaurant can't open its doors without documentation of a septic system installed decades ago.

A New Brunswick family business is facing an unexpected roadblock, thanks to septic system red tape.

As tourists flock to St. Martin’s Sea Caves, Natasha Parsons hoped to draw them to her family’s new restaurant.

They bought the Seaside Restaurant this spring. It sits next door to another restaurant they already run. They hired staff, bought equipment and designed a menu. But at the 11th hour, her family learned they couldn’t open.“

The only thing that was holding us up was obtaining the food premise license,” said Parsons.

Parsons said they were denied the licence because they didn’t have a certificate of compliance for their septic system, which would prove it was approved when it was installed more than 25 years ago.

“New Brunswick only keeps those records for 20 years, after which they destroy them. And we did not have the paperwork. The former owners did not have the paperwork, and installers are only required to keep their paperwork for seven years,” said Parsons.

Jim Bedford, the mayor of Fundy-St. Martins said regulations need to be in place, but to him, this provincial law doesn’t make sense.

“They don’t have to keep the records past 20 years. So why would they expect a business owner to hang onto a piece of paper for more than 20 years?” he asked.

Parsons said the only choices were to produce the record or to put in a brand-new septic system—which she noted could cost up to $50,000. Instead, they’ve stayed closed all season.

“It’s heartbreaking. You know, it was a dream. And it was also heartbreaking to sit there and tell people they didn’t have jobs,” Parsons said.

Bedford points out how two other takeout spots faced the same hurdle. One business paid for a new septic system in order to open.

However, one of those restaurants is still closed even though the owner operated another pizza business in the exact same spot a few years ago. Another takeout business and a public washroom exist in the same complex and relies on the same septic system.

“We’ve offered to uncover the septic system so they could inspect it. They turn that down,” said Bedford.

New Brunswick’s Minister of Health wasn’t available for an interview. In a statement to CTV News, a spokesperson highlighted legislation that requires all food premises to be connected to an approved onsite sewage disposal system.

“This requirement was put in place in 2009 to ensure the protection of drinking water and recreational waters from sewage contamination. Restaurants established before the legislative changes were not required to validate their existing septic systems, but this exemption ends when ownership changes,” the statement read, It added that before 2021, individual regions enforced the rule differently so it was decided that requiring proof of regulatory compliance was the safest course of action.

The spokesperson also pointed out how since 2016, records are being stored electronically. That makes approvals easy to access. While records of approved septic systems are kept for 20 years, some regions’ logs date back longer.

The province also noted how the average lifespan of an area bed septic system is 20 to 30 years and grease generated by restaurants, especially from dishwashing, cooking, and cleaning, can significantly affect its longevity.

When CTV News asked why the province won’t allow people to provide other proof the approved system was installed, such as by digging it up, the province noted that uncovering a septic system is not a reliable method to assess its suitability, as it provides only limited visual information.

“The Department of Health recognizes these situations create challenges for business owners and continues to work with them to find solutions while maintaining strong public health standards,” the statement read.

Parsons thinks more businesses need to know about the rule and how they need to have a potentially decades old document.

“Even our lawyer was not aware that this was in place. That would have definitely impacted our decision to purchase this business, because we can’t run it as a business as intended,” she said.