It is the story of a civil servant equipped with a measuring tape and given a mission.
On August 8, while the Pride festivities were in full swing, this inspector from the Ville-Marie borough decided to go and examine the terraces of the Village.
Sainte-Catherine Street East had been pedestrianized since May 17. The terraces, well established for three months. No matter: he chose this precise moment to take out his ribbon, during this short period of the year when thousands of tourists descend on the Village to give its merchants a little oxygen.
What he saw in front of the District Video Lounge didn’t pass muster.
The official found a serious shortcoming. The green plants installed by the bar owners to beautify their terrace were too high, as revealed by the QMI Agency earlier this week.
They measured precisely 2.59 metres, he calculated, while the permitted limit is 1.07 metres.
As the inspector indicated in an email that I was able to read, “the development is not fully compliant with the requirements of Appendix 1 of the by-law on the occupation of public property RRV M c. O-0.1 of the borough of Ville-Marie.”
Vegetation, according to the regulation, “must not hide road signs” and “must not become a visual obstacle for motorists and cyclists.”
Sainte-Catherine Street East is pedestrianized, so no vehicles circulate there. And bicycles are prohibited.
But why bother with these details?
The rules are the rules.
Danny Jobin, co-owner of the District and two other bars in the Village, takes this story with humor.
But he is no less astounded by the attitude of the Ville-Marie borough. Especially in the context where his neighbourhood has been undermined for years by a homelessness crisis, by the sale and consumption of hard drugs and by a climate of generalized insecurity.
PHOTO DENIS GERMAIN, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
District Video Lounge co-owner Danny Jobin stands amidst the vegetation of his establishment
“It’s not a good idea to give us warnings about beautiful terraces,” he told me. “We’d rather have our customers look at plants than people shooting up right next to them in the street.”
The trader deplores having “never had so many restrictions” from the authorities in the 32 years he has been doing business in the Village.
A kind of anti-climatebusiness.
This story recalls the “terracegate” that occurred during the F1 Grand Prix last June. In the midst of festivities, fire safety inspectors carried out a savage raid to quickly close down four terraces on Peel Street that were packed with customers.
Horror: they were located… 58 centimeters too close to the restaurant.
Danny Jobin has been granted a reprieve until next year for his houseplants. Good for him. But this new case still raises a series of questions.
Who at the district management decided to send an inspector to track down shopkeepers during Pride?
Why blindly apply a regulation relating to road safety on a street? pedestrian ?
Was this employee looking for some job to justify his salary, in the end?
Perhaps the answers will come one day.
But this bureaucratic blunder, which some will consider anecdotal, brings us back to a more fundamental issue: the size of the workforce of the City of Montreal.
Some 2,500 new workers have been hired since 2017, the year Valérie Plante’s party took power. Labour costs will amount to $2.7 billion this year.
Are there too many people at mass?
Municipal politics veteran Richard Bergeron thinks so. The founder of Projet Montréal, who has held a series of important positions in Montreal’s administration over the years, made a colorful segment about it on the show THE 15-18. Listen if you want to hear an avalanche of numbers.1
There have been a lot of necessary hiring, including at the Montreal Police Department. Others, too, related to adaptation to climate change, homelessness management or school security.
But the Plante administration may be casting its net too wide, according to Danielle Pilette, a professor specializing in municipal affairs at the University of Quebec in Montreal.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Danielle Pilette, a professor specializing in municipal affairs at the University of Quebec in Montreal
It is certain that politicians who are more to the left always tend to favour increasing the number of civil servants rather than simplifying operations.
Danielle Pilette, professor specializing in municipal affairs at the University of Quebec in Montreal
It’s hard to argue with him.
The killer question now.
Do Montrealers, citizens and business people, feel that they have received better services in recent years? Are they satisfied with the state of the streets? With garbage collection? With delays in issuing permits?
In short, do they concretely feel the impact of these 2,500 hires on their quality of life?
It is permissible to doubt this.
And the situation is not going to get any better, if we are to believe the mayors of five Montreal boroughs. They made a scathing statement Wednesday morning to denounce the much faster increase in staff numbers and budgets in the central city than in the boroughs since 2017.2
The transfers they receive from the city centre are no longer enough to offer all the local services to their residents, they say. Some boroughs, such as Montréal-Nord, Outremont or Pierrefonds-Roxboro, have started to restrict library opening hours or stopped filling potholes.
The frequency of mowing municipal lawns could also be reduced in several neighborhoods, they warned.
To avoid further inconvenience, I suggest this: do not wait until the lawn reaches 1.07 metres in height.
1. Listen to Richard Bergeron’s segment on the show 15-18 on the Radio-Canada website
2. Read the article “Funding: districts threaten to cut services”