The last thing the city needed was a snafu to tarnish its reputation in full view of well-heeled visitors from around the world.
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This is not the way we expected to kick off summer in this city.
Then again, the signs were already there that it was going to be some kind of tough sledding, especially after learning the Just for Laughs festival — a major source of tourist revenue and entertainment relief — had been cancelled.
Although summer doesn’t officially begin until June 20, the real kickoff for many Montrealers has always been the Grand Prix weekend, which wrapped Sunday.
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The hope is that the influx of tourists will bring about Christmas in June, with somewhere in the vicinity of $100 million being spent at restaurants and hotels and shops, which could use all the help they can get after enduring years of COVID and ubiquitous road construction. And can’t forget Grand Prix is also a major boon to our various layers of government, bringing in much-needed tax dollars.
So the city tries its best to show it’s a world-class metropolis, in spite of the orange cones. About the last thing Montreal needs is a snafu that tarnishes its reputation in full view of well-heeled visitors from around the world.
But that’s exactly what we got Friday night, when fire prevention officers shut down four Peel St. terrasses, including that of the high-end Portuguese seafood resto Ferreira Café. This happened at 9 p.m., with the terrasses in full swing.
The reason for this is that the terrasses weren’t complying with fire regulations. Not to suggest inspectors weren’t within their rights to apprise the restaurateurs of infractions, but surely they could have informed the restaurants earlier in the week that they would be shutting down the terrasses if they didn’t adhere to code.
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To wait until the first night of Grand Prix weekend is unconscionable. It could have all been so easily averted. Instead, the city gets yet another black eye.
A highly emotional post on Instagram by Ferreira Café’s director of operations, Sandra Ferreira, has since gone viral and has been picked up not only here but in countless other urban centres. In tears after the shutting down of her terrasse, Ferreira announces that she is “ashamed for my city.” She also notes that she had a permit for the terrasse — which cost $40,000 — and was under the assumption from speaking to city officials that all would be OK, after a previous warning from city inspectors was addressed.
No surprise that Mayor Valérie Plante was unamused to learn of this confrontation and wants to ensure this sort of situation never repeats itself — and definitely not in front of tourists.
Glenn Castanheira, executive director of the SDC Montréal centre-ville business group, put it best in assessing the situation: “It seems a bazooka was used to kill a fruit fly.”
Indeed. This could have been handled so much better.
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In the words of the brute prison warden speaking to Paul Newman (who happened to be a race-car buff) in the film classic Cool Hand Luke: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”
Which is something that has haunted the Plante administration for years.
On that note, one really has to feel for the restaurateurs and merchants, particularly on a street like Peel, where there is no access from Ste-Catherine St. because of construction.
The reality is that downtown restaurateurs, hoteliers and merchants have been held hostage for years, trying to deal with seemingly uncontrolled road construction in our ever-rotting infrastructure — and will continue to be for decades to come.
As for the race itself, it appears all went well, apart from some VIP crowds rushing into verboten track areas and some non-VIP types experiencing entry issues.
But one more black eye for the city came when U.S. rapper Pitbull cancelled his concert at the last minute Saturday, with crowds having withstood torrential rains at Parc Jean-Drapeau to catch his act. Apparently, difficulties with his plane forced the cancellation.
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Pitbull apologized, and concert promoter Evenko has issued refunds. Swell, but it’s real hard to believe a major artist doesn’t have a contingency plan in place for this kind of emergency.
On the other hand, the weekend did end well on the concert front, with Snoop Dogg not only showing up at the Bell Centre for his Sunday gig, but winning the hearts and minds and perhaps lungs of his devotees in the process.
Then again, Snoop may not need a plane to fly here.
City administrators will now keep their fingers crossed for the rest of the summer and are no doubt hopeful that there will be giggles in the air — and not at their expense. With Just for Laughs cancelled, Quebec City’s ComediHa! — which took over the major assets of the financially beleaguered festival — has stepped in to try to fill the humour void July 18 to 28 with a salute to Montreal.
And hopefully it’s more than just a one-finger salute to the city.
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