A Montreal bar owner is furious at the installation of a temporary bar directly in front of his establishment, in the middle of the Nuit blanche weekend.
“This lack of planning is unacceptable. With a vacancy rate of 30% on the street, you can’t tell me that there wasn’t a better place to put this bar,” criticizes Sergio Da Silva, owner of Turbo Haüs, on the line. a bar on rue Saint-Denis in the Latin Quarter.
Since Friday, the street has been closed to host the second edition of “Apik”, a free event which mixes board sports, dance and alcohol.
Although “Apik” invites its participants on its website to frequent the bars of rue Saint-Denis, it also sells its own alcohol, notably in a temporary bar with a terrace.
The only problem is that this bar was installed directly in front of the Turbo Haüs, which was hoping to have a particularly busy weekend this weekend with Nuit blanche.
“Very uninviting”
“I got up in the morning, and there was a bar in front of my bar,” summarizes Mr. Da Silva. It’s beyond stupid.”
According to him, the current arrangement makes his establishment “very uninviting,” and makes him fear losing thousands of dollars in sales.
“Right now, in front of my bar, it looks like it’s a backstage [arrière-scène] and you’re not supposed to be there,” he laments.
Mr. Da Silva maintains that he was not consulted on the planning of these facilities.
“I understand that these events are there for our benefit, but I’m sure that plenty of bars on the street would have been happy to set up their own little kiosk outside to collect some money,” he argues.
Well planned, says SDC
The Latin Quarter Commercial Development Corporation (SDC) defended the planning of the event in which it collaborated for “months”.
“The specific logistical and security constraints of an event of this scale, on this section of rue Saint-Denis, limit the possibilities of the location of a temporary bar,” explained general director Rachel Van Velzen by email. . Since the beginning of the year, merchants in the Latin Quarter have been regularly informed of this event through various communication platforms, notably highlighting the sale of alcohol on the street.
In interview with The newspaper,Mme Van Velzen said the event must sell alcohol to ensure its funding.
Furthermore, she indicated that it has been impossible for bars to open their own kiosk due to municipal bureaucracy.
In fact, to do this, it was necessary to submit a request in March 2023 to the Ville-Marie district, well before we knew if Apik was going to return for a second year.
However, the Ville-Marie borough recently modified its regulations to create a September deadline for winter events.
The City of Montreal did not immediately respond to interview requests from Newspaper Saturday night.
The Apik organization, for its part, declined our interview request.