After an over year-long closure, the Salmo Hotel Bar & Grill is open once again.
The historic Salmo Hotel has been closed since last September after an electrical malfunction caused a fire on the roof of the building, resulting in approximately $800,000 worth of damage.
Owner John Mirko was finally able to reopen the hotel bar for liquor service only on December 2. Food service is not expected to start until next week, as Mirko says they are waiting for one final inspection from the Ministry of Health.
The establishment had been closed for over 440 days in total, which Mirko did not anticipate.
Initially he presumed the hotel would be fully operational within 100 days at most, but securing the required permits from the Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK) ended up being harder—and more expensive—than he anticipated.
“We had a lot of issues with the regional district and their building code people. There was a lot of leveraging by the regional district off of building codes that caused us to spend hundreds of days on renovations I don’t think we needed to do. We now have virtually a 2024-coded building, which was not necessary in my mind.”
Mirko says he was required to upgrade the entire building to acquire the necessary permits, even though the fire was limited to the roof. The upgrades cost over $300,000, which Mirko was forced to cover out of pocket.
“It was a lot. We’re talking about the entire building, and the fire never went into the building—it was only the roof of the veranda. There was no other fire damage anywhere, not even smoke. It was an opportunity for them [the RDCK] to upgrade this whole building, except my insurance didn’t cover all of that additional work the district wanted done.”
The hotel rooms are not ready yet for bookings, but Mirko hopes they will be in time for the ski season.
“We’re working on the hotel rooms. First things first is the bar, then the restaurant and takeout, and then the rooms. Hopefully, we’ll get all that done soon, especially with ski season coming up—we don’t want to miss a second one.”
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