VANCOUVER - Six Vancouver community centres suing the city have lost the first of three court actions they launched to stop Vancouver's OneCard public access program.

In a decision made public Tuesday, B.C. Supreme Court ruled the city has the right to advertise its new universal access program in all of its community centres, including the six that are opposing the program.

Justice Bruce Cohen dismissed an injunction application from Hillcrest, Sunset, Killarney, Kerrisdale, Hastings and Kensington community centre associations seeking to stop the Vancouver park board and its staff from advertising the OneCard system. The groups are embroiled in a lawsuit claiming the park board doesn't have the right to bring in the program, which would entitle patrons to use city-owned recreational facilities without having to pay individual association membership fees.

The city has already negotiated agreements with 12 other community centre associations since bringing in the OneCard program last summer. But the six holdouts argue the new system would deprive them of individual membership dues, thus harming their ability to survive. They also argue that a large portion of assets in the city-owned community centres belongs to the associations, which funded improvements and equipment through their membership fees.

As a result, the associations are suing the city in a case that will be heard next year. They are also seeking an injunction, to be heard Nov. 18, preventing the city from terminating joint operating agreements it has with the holdouts before the main case is heard. The city has given notice those agreements won't be renewed effective Dec. 31.

In his reasons for judgment Justice Cohen found in favour of the city on all counts, saying it had the right to advertise the OneCard program and that the city had made it clear the system was, at this point, only applicable to city-provided services such as its pools and skating rinks. Other programs offered solely by the associations are not included in the OneCard benefits.

Niki Sharma, the park board's committee chair, said the judge's ruling validated the city's position. Since the OneCard program has been initiated more than 75,000 of the free cards have been handed out.

She noted that two of the top three locations where participants have signed up for OneCard are Hillcrest and Killarney Community Centres. The Vancouver Aquatic Centre is second in popularity.

"In other words, the program is more popular with members of the community centre associations that are fighting this program," Sharma said. "We have been successful on all grounds in this court case. But the OneCard program has already become an extremely popular program."

Ainslie Kwan, the president of the Killarney Community Centre Association, said her group regards the failed injunction application as a win anyway because until the groups went to court the park board was intending to impose OneCard on all programs, regardless of who ran them.

"They were unilaterally trying to push this and only backed off when we sought the injunction. The judge noted the city wasn't doing that, so he said there wasn't any reason for an injunction," she said.

Kwan said the city has already been told by a court official that it cannot continue to pursue its eviction of the associations until the Nov. 18 injunction application has been decided.

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