By David Wiwchar

demands city focus on street disorder

Coulson blasts City Council

Jan 29, 2026 | 7:28 AM

Wayne Coulson is furious at City Council after they targetted his building at 3rd and Mar for operating outside of zoning restrictions.

When Zellers closed in 2013 the community begged Coulson to take over the building after it had been left empty and derelict for years.

Coulson says he has spent tens of thousands of dollars cleaning the property and painting over graffiti, and wishes the city would put more effort towards street disorder instead of harassing businesses.

“The city made several comments about the look of our building and we would encourage them to try and clean up the drug problem because what they fail to talk about is the amount of windows that get smashed, the amount of needles, and drug activity that goes on around the building,” he said. “We’ve asked them every time we paint it, is it seems we get tagged with more paint from some of the local drug dealers.”

Coulson says the 90-year old building has been transformed in to a storage and R&D facility, supporting the company’s industry-leading aerial firefighting business.

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20 people work at the former Woodwards building, supporting more than 200 people who work at their Alberni Valley Regional Airport facility.

“The fact that City Council doesn’t support those 20 jobs that supports the 200 jobs at the airport is very disappointing from my standpoint and we’re looking at taking corrective action and really reconsidering whether we want to invest additional capital at the airport,” he said.

Coulson says if the city begins issuing fines he will move the $5million operation to Nanaimo, who have been courting him for more than a decade.

City Bylaw officers also targetted Merit Furniture for using the former Woolworth Building for storage, and owner Kinder Dley says he plans to put a small showroom at the front of the building to placate the City, even though it will be impossible to regularly staff it.