Starting a food business in Colwood

Opening a shop, café, kitchen or truck in Colwood

Business licence

$125 up to 464.5 m² (5,000 sq ft), $200 over.

Applying for the licence

Online form. Development services, engineering, bylaw, building and fire review it before it is issued; the fee is paid in advance and isn’t refundable.

Checking zoning

Zoning is on Colwood’s GIS maps; questions to planning@colwood.ca. A written “comfort letter” on zoning costs $100.

Building permit

Needed for alterations, and an occupancy permit for any change of occupancy. $50 for the first $1,000 plus $12 per $1,000 to $100,000, an application fee of $100 included; doubled if you start without one.

Fire inspection

The fire department is one of the departments that review a licence before it is issued. A commercial space may need an inspection — call 250-478-8321 and ask for the Prevention Division. No fee is published.

Food truck fire inspection

Inspected during the licence review: an ABC extinguisher, and where cooking makes grease-laden vapour, a fixed suppression system and a Class K extinguisher.

Business licence

No one may carry on business in Colwood without a Colwood licence or a valid Intermunicipal or Inter-Community licence. Home occupations are licensed as "Home Crafts/Home Occupation", and a home-based or intermunicipal licence may need a fire inspection.

Home-based fee: “Home Crafts/Home Occupation $100”, charged once when you apply; licences renew automatically each year

Running it from home

Colwood allows home occupations, and one that provides food or drink must be approved by the Medical Health Officer before it operates. The work must happen inside the home — or an accessory building on lots of 5,000 m² or more — with no manufacturing or light industrial use and no noise, smoke, odour or other nuisance beyond what a dwelling normally produces.

• Food or drink: approval by the Medical Health Officer before operating (s. 2.1.07(7)).
• Residents plus one non-resident employee (s. 2.1.07(2)).
• Wholly inside the dwelling; an accessory building (no larger than 40 m²) only on lots of 5,000 m² or more. There is no floor-area cap inside the dwelling (s. 2.1.07(3)).
• No manufacturing, welding or other light industrial use; no noise, vibration, smoke, dust, odour, litter or heat beyond a normal dwelling; no fire hazard or traffic congestion (s. 2.1.07(6)).
• No outdoor storage; one unlit sign of up to 0.3 m² (s. 2.1.07(4)–(5)).
• Where the home has a secondary suite or ADU, only if the business adds no traffic or parking (s. 2.1.07(11)).
• Some zones allow a home office only — for example HAH1, CD28 (Latoria South) and CD29 (Meaford) — so check your zone.

Markets and events

Selling goods on Colwood streets, boulevards, parks or recreation facilities needs Council permission, through a licence of occupation, contract, special event permit or other approval. Food trucks need $5,000,000 insurance naming the City, Island Health approval and FOODSAFE, a Fire Department inspection, and may operate only on private property zoned for restaurant use unless at a City-sanctioned event.

Mobile businesses

Colwood is in the Greater Victoria Intermunicipal licence, whose eligible categories include catering, and in the Vancouver Island Inter-Community licence; each is a designation added to the base licence. The Inter-Community bylaw posted on Colwood’s site is still the 2020 one (No. 1813).

Fee: "Intermunicipal Designation $50 + Base License Fee"; "Inter Community Designation $70 + Base License Fee"