A disputed gate at the center of a lawsuit between the City of Kelowna and Eldorado Resort is now open. The lawsuit was filed by the city in the spring of 2021. It claims the hotel was in violation of a 22-year-old agreement between the city and the hotel’s former owner that “vested a legal right-of-way in favor of the city for public access along the shoreline of Okanagan Lake” to maintained. Public access to the boardwalk at the resort was to be maintained between sunrise and sunset. That access, the city claimed, was denied when the hotel locked the gate at the south end of the right-of-way in early 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. A section of the right track passes within close proximity of the hotel’s outdoor restaurants. A temporary ruling issued last fall allowed access to remain closed only during restaurant hours. Recently, the city applied for and received an update based on the changing circumstances. In a statement this week to Castanet, Eldorado Resort general manager Mark Jeanes said the hotel raised no objection to this latest request. “We will comply with the court’s decision, as we have done throughout this process. We have only ever been concerned with compliance with WorkSafeBC and the health and safety of our guests, staff and members of the general public,” said Jeanes. “The outstanding issues between the city and the Eldorado Hotel will be decided at trial, which we expect to be held in the fall,” he adds. The City of Kelowna also released a statement. “As one of our most important community amenities, the City of Kelowna continues to support and defend the integrity of public access rights along Okanagan Lake. Therefore, the City is pleased with the most recent court order, which requires the Hotel Eldorado to (during the day) open the gate previously used to restrict public access to the City’s legal right-of-way along the boardwalk.”
