Allan Davies Retiring, Almost
By Rossland Telegraph
Well-known Rossland businessman Allan Davies is retiring. Well, partially: he’s retiring from the garbage-pick-up portion of Davies Sales & Service Ltd. — he’ll still be available for BCCA service calls. Unless he’s gone fishing. 77-year-old Davies has been talking about giving up the garbage business “for about five years now,” according to Val Cross, who manages the office for him. Now he has reached an agreement to turn over the City of Rossland Curbside Garbage contract to Alpine Disposal and Recycling Ltd., a Victoria-based company with a local division in Trail. Alpine will be picking up Rossland’s garbage as of October 1, 2016.
Davies took over the business from his father and has been providing various services in Rossland for 61 years. What the business does has varied over time; it has included transport, towing, and snow-plowing, among other services, and for about the past 18 years, has provided Rossland’s garbage service.
Davies announced his decision to retire shortly after Rossland City Council passed a bylaw requiring all garbage to be placed at the curb in garbage cans with lids, instead of just in bags that could be picked up and flung into the truck; the decision was intended to keep garbage from being strewn around our streets by marauding dogs, ravens, raccoons and bears. Now, the garbage collectors must lift the lid off the container, pick out the garbage bag, throw it in the truck, and replace the lid. Asked whether Davies had been consulted at all about the difference this might make to his contract, Cross replied that as far as she knew there had been no consultation; and that it now takes about an hour longer, or more, to collect garbage on each collection day. That’s an extra hour of wages for each employee for each collection day. Over the course of a year, that’s a significant additional cost to the contractor.
Davies is known for his willingness to provide service well beyond the bare terms of his contract. One Rossland resident had persistent bear problems, so — by prior arrangement — Davies’s employees would go inside that resident’s garage to get the garbage. Another resident, a frail senior, could not get her garbage to the curb, so – again by prior arrangement — when she had garbage to pick up, she would tie a colourful scarf to her doorknob, and Davies’s employees would go the her door and fetch the trash from inside her house.
Recently, when one of the garbage pick-up employees was ill and could not work, Davies’s wife demonstrated their business and service ethic: Mary Ann filled in and spent her day swinging garbage into the truck.
Davies said, “We would like to take this opportunity to thank our customers and the community for all the support and loyalty you have shown our business and family.
“Alpine is well established in the Kootenay Boundary region with their base in Trail and has provided quality service throughout the surrounding communities for the past 25 years. We hope you will continue to support them in the future as we now assist them in the transition of providing service to you and the community.”
Davies added that the garbage pick-up schedule in Rossland will continue unchanged, and noted that anyone with service enquiries or concerns should call Alpine’s office at 250-367-0099.
However wonderful the service Alpine may provide, some of us cannot help but mourn the loss of this business from Rossland.
