Letter: Utility bylaw unfair to my small business

By Letter to the Editor on September 25, 2025.

Dear editor,

Medicine Hat’s utility bylaw is punishing a small business bringing life into our downtown since 2018: Small businesses should not have to fight city hall just to survive but that has been my reality for the past 15 months.

As a small business owner in Medicine Hat, I have spent the past 15 months fighting an unfair utility reclassification that has cost me thousands of dollars and forced me to cancel hundreds of classes each year.

In 2023, I purchased my building and invested in extensive renovations to create a safe, welcoming space for my clients and the community. Now, I feel handcuffed by a system that continues to penalize me despite my commitment and investment.

Here’s why this matters. The city’s bylaw groups businesses using between 25 and 2,000 KVA into the same category. That means I, a small fitness studio, am classified alongside greenhouses and large operations with hundreds of staff and budgets far beyond mine.

Most municipalities don’t do this, their medium commercial classifications typically begin at 50 KVA, not 25. Medicine Hat is an outlier, and small businesses like mine are paying the price. My actual overages amount to a combined total of just 8 KVA in 15 months, often by tiny amounts such as 25.05 or 25.6.

For the past seven consecutive months I have remained under the 25 KVA limit, but the bylaw requires 12 consecutive months before I can even be considered for reclassification. In the meantime, I am stuck paying higher rates and forced to cut revenue-generating classes just to comply.

To make matters worse, I was reclassified without any notice. Only after I pushed back did the city introduce new procedures to ensure businesses are notified of impending reclassifications, giving them a chance to adjust before penalties take effect.

In other words, I was the guinea pig for a system the city itself now admits needed fixing, yet I remain trapped in the very situation those new procedures are designed to prevent.

The inequity runs deeper. My highest monthly energy use has been 2,100 kWh. For the 1,200 small businesses without demand meters, they would need to exceed 5,000 kWh in a month before facing reclassification

In other words, I am being penalized and pushed into a higher rate class for far less usage, while other businesses potentially consuming far more face no such scrutiny. And unlike in other markets, I cannot shop around for my utilities. Because they are city owned, I am captive to this system and have no form of recourse when it fails me.

Essentially, I am being forced to subsidize other small businesses when I am a small business myself. This is not equity. It is selective enforcement and a system that punishes the very businesses our community needs most.

Rather than acknowledge this inequity, the city has chosen to hide behind bylaws instead of addressing the obvious unfairness. Small businesses are closing in Medicine Hat. If city hall continues to prioritize bureaucracy over fairness, more of us will be pushed to the brink.

Sabrina Moore Frazer Owner, Kollektiv

Medicine Hat

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