A local restaurant owner is out thousands of dollars after a series of recent power outages damaged electrical equipment in his establishment.

"This place is crawling with repairmen," Gordon Clark, co-owner of Boston Pizza, said in an interview at his business Wednesday afternoon.

Not including the lost business and the cost to pay staff to wait around until the power returns, Clark estimates he's paid out $10,000 since January to replace damaged equipment.

"That's money off my bottom line. That's profit I'll never see," he said, adding that he pays about $10,000 a month in utilities, most of that going to Yukon Electrical Co. Ltd.(YECL).

The last outage took out the $3,000 circuit board that controls his lighting system. Adding in shipping and installation, Clark said the cost to replace it was closer to $4,000.

"That's the third time our lighting system has been fried in the last four or five years," said Clark.

Previously, an outage blackened a circuit board for an induction cooker. With the cost of shipping and installation, replacing it was an additional $2,000. Clark said he has lost two induction cooker circuit boards this year alone.

Two of his thermostats have also been rendered useless in the last week as a result of an instantaneous cut in the power. That cost him another $1,000 each to replace.

"It's just insane, like, I can't pour a draft," said Clark.

Because the thermostats control the beer cooler, it won't stay cold.

"So we have beer on ice in there waiting to replace these systems."

Jay Massie,YECL's superintendant of operations, said there are two main causes of power outages. Either there is a disruption in the distribution, such as a tree or animal on the line, or there's a problem with the supply.

If a squirrel causes a problem on a line, the breaker controlling power to the line will turn off for a fraction of a second, then turn back on. If the squirrel remains, the breaker will turn off a second time.

"The power lines pack a whole lot of punch and usually blow whatever the problem is away," said Massie.

A normal power line has between 12,000 35,000 volts running through it.

Massie said as far as he can tell, none of the outages have caused surges in electricity that would cause damaged equipment, and he doesn't know what would have caused Clark's blackened circuit board.

A lot of electrical equipment is sensitive to suddenly turning off, which could damage equipment, he said.

According to section 9.3 of the Yukon Energy Corp. (YEC) and YECL Service Regulations:

"The company shall not be liable for any loss, damage, expense, charge, cost of liability of any kind ...arising out of or in any way connected with any failure, defect, fluctuation, reduction or interruption in the provision of service by the Company to its customers."

The regulations also say it is the customer's responsibility to protect his or her equipment from such loss or damage to equipment.

Before encountering the recent difficulties with equipment, Clark thought he had protected everything that was sensitive to surges.

He has already installed surge protectors for the induction cookers, costing him $1,000. He said he hasn't yet committed to protecting all the electrical equipment in the building; a further $5,000 expense.

"Every time I turn around, it's another thousand, another thousand, another thousand," said Clark.

When he first came to the Yukon in 1980, he said, the city saw only five or six outages a year. He thinks the outages have risen dramatically in the past few years.

Clark has been running Boston Pizza for nine years and ran Tim Hortons for seven years before that.

"So when I say we've never had outages like this, you can believe me," he said.

Massie said there have been 16 outages since January, including those caused by supply problems at Yukon Energy.

Massie said it has seemed like a typical year for outages.

Janet Patterson is supervisor of communications for the YEC, which generates much of the territory's power. Yukon Energy then sells the power to YECL, which distributes it to Whitehorse customers.

Patterson said late 2008 and early 2009 "was not a good year" for Yukon Energy in terms of outages, which were mostly due to problems with equipment that regulates the system.

Some of the recent outages originated with YECL, but were more widespread than they should have been due to problems with Yukon Energy's substations, said Patterson.

One such outage occurred in April, when a squirrel destroyed a breaker causing a cascading outage to the grid that operates in the southern Yukon. More than 11,000 customers were affected.

"If everything works as it should, only a portion should be affected by an outage," said Patterson.

To deal with the problems, Yukon Energy instigated a "very aggressive" work schedule, and Paterson said that the issues have now been fixed.

Just like Clark, many businesses in town have experienced disruptions caused by outages.

"Nobody's getting out of this Scot-free. Everybody's getting hurt," said Clark.

Rick Karp, the president of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce, has heard a lot of feedback from the business community on the electrical services in the Yukon.

When the electricity cuts out, "the power provider doesn't lose their income; they're still sending out bills every month," said Karp. But the businesses are losing money, either from damaged electronics or lost clientele.

"The lack of a consistency and a reliable source of energy is very frustrating for businesses. Because without the power business stops," said Karp.

Earl's restaurant manager Mark Connell said that after an outage last week, his restaurant cleared from 12 tables to one within 10 minutes.

"Its ridiculous," he said. "I'm lucky I have a backup power supply to keep my computers running."

When the power goes out at Midnight Sun Coffee Roasters, owner Zola Doré can lose an entire batch of beans.

"If the power stops, our roaster stops, and there's $200 right there going right into the garbage. And in my mind, that's happened too many times this year," she said.

From ruined product alone, she has probably lost more than $1,000 this year, she estimates.

But the expenses are far-reaching, Doré said. A sudden loss of electricity can also damage her roasters.

"It's basically an oven, and when power immediately stops, (there are) belts and chains that stretch. Metal cools down improperly; it warps."

Clark said there's "no point" requesting compensation from the electrical companies for his damaged equipment, and he just wants the outages to stop.

"Somehow, there has to be some pressure on these guys," he said. "I'd like to see this fixed."