The Daily Beast
US billionaire Stan Kroenke wins fight to end public access to lakes
Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via GettyAmerican billionaire Stan Kroenke – the real estate and sports tycoon who owns over 2 million hectares of livestock land in North America – has just won a decade-long legal battle in Canada to keep the public away from two lakes that can only be reached through your property. Kroenke, who is married to Walmart heiress Anne Walton, owns Canada’s largest ranch – a gigantic mass larger than the Vancouver metropolitan area, which completely surrounds two bodies of water: Stoney and Minnie Lakes. The lakes, each over eight hundred meters long, are both publicly owned in Canada and full of fish. But the orientation of Kroenke’s property leaves citizens without a route to reach them, forcing aspiring hunters and fishermen to take a small dirt track or an unpaved wagon road through their lands to access the jungle maintained by their tax dollars. Kroenke’s farm, known as the Douglas Lake Cattle Company or Douglas Lake Ranch, used to block access to these routes with locked gates and fences. (Notably, the ranch has two private lakes on the same property, which visitors must pay an undisclosed daily fee to access). Then, in 2013, the Nicola Valley Fish and Game Club, a local non-profit organization dedicated to wildlife management in the area, sued the farm to open the passages, arguing that the trail had historical significance dating back to its use by an indigenous village, and that Canadian citizens have the right to access public land. In 2018, a British Columbia Supreme Court judge supported the recreational group, noting that Canadian tax dollars were used to rehabilitate the historic trail. But Kroenke appealed, and on Friday, a higher court overturned the 2018 decision, forbidding Canadians to “invade” the two paths. “Our entire club and the majority of Nicola Valley residents cannot believe that an appeals court can, with a stroke of a pen, eliminate a 20 day [British Columbia] Supreme Court judgment decision, ”Rick McGowan, director of the Nicola Valley Fishing and Hunting Club, told The Daily Beast on Monday. “He stole 10 years of research and work, all for the benefit of a wealthy American.” Appeal judges confirmed in their decision that the lakes and fish in them are not owned by Kroenke’s farm, but have accepted their lawyers. I argue that a path does not reach the “natural limit” of the waters and that there was insufficient evidence to tie the trail to indigenous roots. In their decision, the judges wrote that the first instance judge “added his voice to the chorus of those who seek to limit the rights of private owners”. “The (Nicola Valley) club invites us to recognize the right to cross private land where it is necessary to do so to access a lake on land reserved for the Crown for the benefit of the public,” wrote Appeal Judge Peter Willcock in the lawsuit. “In my opinion, while this argument may attract considerable public support, it has no support in our law.” Evan Cooke, a lawyer who represents the Douglas Lake Cattle Company, called Friday’s decision “the right decision”. “The DLCC was convinced from the outset that its position in the litigation was consistent with British Columbia law,” said Cooke. Last week’s decision came at a high cost to the nonprofit environmental organization. The judges determined that the organization was not a “public interest litigator”, which means that it will have to pay the billionaire’s attorney fees for his appeal, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of dollars owed by the billionaires themselves. According to Vancouver Sun, the non-profit organization has maintained its own legal fund with picnics and raffles. “It will probably be $ 25,000 or $ 30,000 [for Kroenke’s legal expenses]”Said McGowan. “I don’t believe that we would be able to raise funds to pay the legal bills, but we are getting funding to take the case to the Supreme Court of Canada on some issues.” The club’s lawyer, Christopher Harvey, told the Daily Beast in an email that “the key issue here is public rights of access to public lakes. private property rights of landowners around lakes ”. “The law maintains a balance between these two competing rights, but as far as water rights are concerned, the law has long favored public rights over private rights,” he said by email. “What is remarkable about this decision is that it reverses the equation … Although the water is publicly owned, no one is now allowed to travel over it if the bed under the water is privately owned.” Inside the war between the rich and the super-rich on an English golf course Kroenke made his fortune with land development: Forbes estimates he owns about 30 million square feet of real estate – mostly in shopping plazas near megastores of her in-laws – generating a net worth of more than $ 8.2 billion. One of its properties is a huge expanse of land in northern Texas, around Lake Diversion, near the Wichita Falls. In 2016, Kroenke evicted hundreds of longtime residents of the 35,000-acre farm, forcing them to leave their homes less than four months in advance. According to Dallas News, most residents were elderly or living on a fixed income. “We have relatives who have been renting here for 50 years,” longtime resident Annette McNeil told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at the time. Kroenke also channeled part of his fortune to sports teams and owns NHL’s. Colorado Avalanche, NFL LA Rams, English Premier League Arsenal FC and NBA Denver Nuggets, among others. The NFL technically does not allow team owners to own professional sports properties in competing cities. But Kroenke found a way around the rules: he arranged to put two of the teams under the name of his son, Josh Kroenke, while keeping them in the family. In 2017, Kroenke became involved in a different type of sport – an on-demand app called MyOutdoorTV, which has been dubbed “Netflix from the hunting world”. The bloody paid sports channel featured, among other features, the trophy hunting of endangered animals, including lions and elephants. After MOTV was widely criticized in the press, Kroenke requested the removal of all content related to the hunting of large animals. Harvey hinted that the legal conclusions of the decision left room for another appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada – if the fishing group can afford it. McGowan agreed, noting that the club plans to raise funds to support the effort. “The judge[s] effectively said that water on private land is not navigable for the people of Canada, ”said McGowan. “It means that they are just giving it to the owner for free.” A spokesman for the Ministry of Forestry, Land, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development in British Columbia said it was too early to comment on the decision, as the fish and gambling club could try to get the upper court’s opinion. The British Columbia Court of Appeal ruling is a historic case with broad implications for public access to land in a region where many Crown-owned waterways are closed by private ownership. The case occurs in a broader international movement on public rights to the wild, known as “freedom to roam” There is increasing pressure in British Columbia to establish “right of movement” laws. “It doesn’t make sense to me,” wrote Judge Joel Groves in the original 2018 ruling, “that the Crown would retain ownership of the lakes, just so there would be no access.” “This is not a happy judgment for public rights,” Harvey said. “The attorney general has a legal duty to protect public rights, but in this case, that has not happened. The club operates entirely on its own. ”Read more at The Daily Beast. Do you have a tip? Submit to The Daily Beast here. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Subscribe now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. To know more.