Fire in a building in Old Montreal | The owner sues the city for 7.5 million

Criticized from all sides since March, the owner of the building in Old Montreal where a fire left seven dead is responding in turn. In a legal action, he accuses the municipal administration of having “contributed to the outbreak and the severity of the fire” by its intransigence in terms of preserving heritage buildings and by sending an insufficient number of firefighters to place.

“Through his behavior, [la Ville de Montréal] therefore seriously contributed to the outbreak and severity of the fire, to the damage caused to the building as well as to the lives lost in this tragic event,” specifies the application initiating proceedings filed in Superior Court on behalf of the owner Émile Benamor. The latter claims 7.5 million in damages.

Through this new procedure, Mr. Benamor attempts to shift responsibility onto the authorities for the disastrous fire of March 16. Mr. Benamor himself was sharply criticized by the families of certain victims, who criticized him for the state in which he kept his building and the fact that some of his accommodation had been offered for subletting on accommodation platforms. in the short term, in a place that they consider deficient in terms of security.

The family of Nathan Sears, one of the victims killed in the fire, has already filed a class action request against Mr. Benamor, and on Friday the family of another victim, Charlie Lacroix, filed an individual lawsuit which targets in particular Mr. Benamor. The Montreal police are also conducting an investigation, part of which aims specifically to determine whether there was criminal negligence in this case.

Protection in question

Mr. Benamor’s motion instituting proceedings, written by lawyers Éric Olivier and Lucie Desgagné, states that the owner arrived on site very early on the evening of the tragedy. Mr. Benamor claims that he tried to alert the firefighters about the people trapped inside, without being listened to. That evening, “the officials on site were not willing to hear the applicant.”

During the evening, “the efforts made on site to curb the fire were only very summary and were insufficient”, specifies the prosecution, which announces that the thing will be “demonstrated more fully at the hearing” before a judge .

The owner claims that the City has always accepted the use he made of his building, a heritage building on Place D’Youville dating from 1890, which obviously did not meet modern construction standards. The building’s protected status made any updates “highly complex”, he said.

Mr. Benamor cites the example of an entrance with a “wooden door several inches thick dating back more than 100 years.” The gate had “invaluable heritage value” and “could therefore not be modified or replaced in any way”.

Door open for the arsonist

The door opened towards the interior of the building, rather than towards the exterior, as recommended by good fire safety practices. The Montreal firefighters therefore required that the owner leave the front door of the building unlocked at all times, to facilitate a possible evacuation. However, it was through this door that an arsonist entered to pour gasoline and start the fire, according to what the owner says he learned from the police, who are now conducting a murder investigation in this case.

The owner also cites the example of a staircase which led to the roof of his building and thus offered an exit to the roof of a neighboring building. The city was concerned that people would come up from the street to celebrate on the roofs and therefore demanded that the upper part be removed in 2012.

“It is clear that by forcing the plaintiff to modify this staircase so that part of it was removed, the occupants had one less escape route at the time of the arson which broke out suddenly,” claims the pursuit.

Among his many criticisms of the City, the owner adds that his representatives made “false” statements which suggested that he had something to be ashamed of and which fueled popular and media vindictiveness against him.

“These statements were made with the aim of diverting attention from the inertia of the City and its various deficient services, including the authorizations granted by its own officials in connection with the configuration of the premises which they could not ignore and in particular the number and location of windows,” states the motion initiating proceedings.

Flame Prison

Friday, another lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of Quebec by the parents of Charlie Lacroix, an 18-year-old girl who died in the fire with her friend Walid Belkahla.

Charlie Lacroix and his companion spent the night in a windowless accommodation that one of his friends had rented on Airbnb. During the night, the two occupants woke up to find that the only exit was blocked by fire.

“Charlie realizes at this moment that she has no way of getting out of this prison of flames and that she will unfortunately die shortly inside the Apartment,” specifies the lawsuit, written by lawyers Charles Daviault and Mathieu Papineau, from the Gowling firm.

The family is seeking a total of $1.5 million in damages jointly from the City of Montreal, Émile Benamor and Tariq Hasan, an entrepreneur who sublet Mr. Benamor’s accommodation on Airbnb.

Regarding the City, the lawsuit asserts that “no follow-up was carried out by the City and no concrete action was taken to condemn the building or even have it removed from short-term rental platforms.”

As for Mr. Benamor, he “knew the non-compliance of the building and the apartment as well as their dangerousness”, adds the document.

Finally, Tariq Hasan “knew that the apartment he rented through Airbnb had no windows and was located in a dangerous building,” the family’s lawyers argue.

“Worse still, Hasan deceived the tenants of the apartment via the photographs chosen to be displayed on the Airbnb platform, which suggest that the Apartment is bathed in natural daylight when it is a fake window”, concludes the procedure.

The City of Montreal preferred not to comment on the case since it now finds itself before the courts. The Press was unable to reach Tariq Hasan, who declined multiple interview requests since March.