 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. February 15th, 2013. The theory is that if you invite a celebrity to your event more people will show up – and that would apply in Burlington if you invited Walk off the Earth. Inviting the Mayor of the city to open an event – don’t think that is going to pull the crowd James Burchill, wants for his Spring into Business event – nevertheless the Mayor is going to deliver the opening remarks at the “Spring Into Business” Networking & Trade Show Event to be held at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre March 21st.
If you are an independent business operator mark that date on your calendar – actually you probably don’t have to – Burchill has the best list of smaller business operations in the city. The one thing Burchill does exceptionally well is promote himself and his ventures.
 The BiB – Burlington in Business crowd at the Waterfront Hotel where they meet once a month. Founder James Burchill has moved his gig to the Performing Arts Centre for a March event. Great bar over there – can they handle 500 + thirsty people? He held a mini-trade show at the Beaver and the Bulldog a couple of months ago – the room was packed which led Burchill to believe he could move to a larger, brighter venue and put on a bigger event. He might be right – it was certainly worth the risk.
The event is a joint venture between all the Social Fusion Networking groups and hosted by the beautiful Burlington Performing Arts Centre, this event will cater to approximately 500 people and showcase 25 local business vendors from 5pm through to 7pm. Admission is free and has already attracted over 350 businesses from far-afield as Niagara through to Toronto.
Social Fusion Networking is the creation of James Burchill who launched the first event in January of 2012. To date these networks have attracted many thousands of local businesses seeking a new way of networking. “It is my understanding that SFN is the largest independent B2B group in Halton because it exceeds 2500 members.” said James Burchill
With consistently high turnouts each month, SFN events integrate the best of modern social media and combine it with classical face-to-face networking. The results and feedback has been nothing short of amazing with James’ efforts being publicly acknowledged by Meetup.com as a “Top 10% Network.”
 James Burchill, on the right, announcing the winner of a door prize – a session with a hypnotist. Interesting. Social Fusion Networking ™ was developed by James Burchill after he noted a series of problems with current B2B networking approaches. The punitive clauses that restricted members to one or few groups, the punishments for failing to attend, the caps and limits on how many people could participate encouraged Burchill to create a new way of networking with No Fees, No Pressure and No restrictions. Meeting monthly at local venues and available always online, SFN integrates a mixture of channels allowing people to connect and communicate in a manner and fashion that suits them best. SFN events are sponsored and advertising supported in lieu of membership dues.
The group has an interesting web presence and has in the past met on Wednesday’s at the Waterfront Hotel where they take up all the space at the best watering hole in the hotel. The Mayor made an appearance there once – that didn’t do anything to attendance.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON February 13, 2014 There isn’t a large corporation on this side of the Atlantic that doesn’t say it is out there to help save the environment. We Canadians, fresh air people for sure yet we live in a country that ships some of the dirtiest oil sucked out of the ground because a large part of our economy depends on selling that oil.
So when you hear about a company that says they are here to help save the environment – you kind of raise an eyebrow and ask – yeah?
 When we heard that the Walker Group has this Earth 1st program that sounded interesting – always good to have a snappy logo to slap on the shipping containers. Then you look at the story a little more deeply and learn that the Walker Group has been doing this for more than ten years.
This year their challenge to their employees was to wear a really funky sweater to work February 7th. Nice idea, lightens up the office, gives staff something different to do – but then they learn that the sweater might come in handy – they’ve turned the heat in all their plants down by two degrees.
THAT is a commitment; that is putting your money, and you personal comfort, where you mouth is.
 Ask your staff to do some funky – and you never know what you’re going to get. The heat must have been down more than two degrees to bring out some of those scarves. Norjohn plant in Burlington on a coffee break? So we trotted along to the Norjohn Plant on Corporate Drive to see how staff had taken up the challenge. Not a lot of people at this location. Tight, tight security – which we will tell you about later.
There they were – the staff wearing their woollies. Now this crowd isn’t going to take any prizes for the “funkiness” but they should get some points for the hat’s they wore. The scarves on the guys at the left and right ends of the group photo are something we won’t comment other than to remind them that The Leaf’s haven’t won since 1967, which was the 100th anniversary of Confederation.
Warm sweater day was the way Walker Industries decided to have their employees reduce their environmental impact in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the company’s innovative EARTH 1st program.
EARTH 1st was developed to take Walker to another level of environmental performance by empowering employees to make a difference at work and at home.
In the past decade, through the suggestions of employees, the company has dramatically reduced its environmental impacts. Some examples include launching a carbon neutral building service, recycling concrete and asphalt, installing energy-efficient lighting and developing wax emulsions from environmentally sustainable resources.
 The Walker Industries head office crowd did their part. All 550-plus employees were asked to wear a warm sweater on February 7th. “We are encouraging staff to find wacky, funky and wild sweater, toque and scarf combinations,” says Alison Braithwaite, the company’s director of Environmental Performance. “We’re looking forward to the virtual fashion show as participants post their photos and videos on our challenge site.”
Walker locations taking part in the challenge included: Walker Industries Head Office & Walker Environmental Group – Thorold and Niagara Falls; Organic Resource Management Inc. – Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Woodstock; • Norjohn Contracting and Paving Limited – Niagara Falls; • Walker Aggregates Inc. – Simcoe County and Niagara Region; Amherst Quarries – Essex County; Norjohn Limited – Burlington; Norjohn-ACI Inc. – Portland, Oregon and Palm Coast, Florida.
 The Walker Industries gang out at the compost site were really innovative – was this because they are all in witness protection programs? While the employees were encouraged to become involved the organization went a little further and asked their customers, suppliers, friends and neighbours to lower their heat and put on their favourite sweater to take action against climate change and work towards a sustainable future.
Braithwaite pointed out that: “If every Canadian lowered the heat by just two degrees this winter, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 4 megatons.”
Other environmental challenges being planned for the year include a water reduction initiative, a turn-out-the-lights effort for Earth Hour, participation in Earth Day celebrations, a bike-to-work week, a community engagement project and a waste reduction week.
How did it work out? Well the gang at Norjohn bought into the idea. As for the rest of the organization – the results are still coming in. Good idea, this planet is ours to save.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON February 4th, 2013 A confidential report on the pier being built at the foot of Brant Street was scheduled for a meeting of the Budget and Corporate Services Committee tomorrow.
The Development and Infrastructure Committee meeting for the first time in its new format was advised this afternoon that the confidential report in the pier would be discussed at the evening portion of the Infrastructure and Development committee – which got the ire of Councillor John Taylor going – he didn’t want to go into a closed session of council to discuss a report that he has not yet read.
 Usually an easy man to get along with – but grumpy, grumpy, grumpy when reports are not ready for him to read and review. John Taylor does nothing on the fly – legal department is going to have to smooth his ruffled feathers. Councillor Taylor can get touchy at times with sudden changes. While he groused city solicit Nancy Shea Nicol took him aside and explained that she would not be giving the a report because there were “some financials” that were not complete but that she would be giving a verbal report that would be followed up by the full document.
OK – but what’s the rush? The report wasn’t due until Tuesday – tomorrow. Is there something going on out there that the public has not been told about?
You bet your bippy there is. The city is has entered the discovery process that has each of the parties in the dispute asking each other questions based on the documentation that has been provided.
That’s when the full story comes into focus and that is when lawyers ask themselves – is this something we should try to settle now or is this something we are solid on so we will go to trial?
The reason for the hurrying
and scurrying is that someone wants to talk settlement.
The reason for the hurrying and scurrying is that someone wants to talk settlement. Who – that would be guessing. Who has the most to lose? The city is in the middle of all this – battling both Harm Schilthuis and Sons Ltd. and AECOM for the princely sum of $7.5 million. If they lose council members will have a lot of explaining to do – not something you want to get into when you are into the second half of their term of office.
Having spent a princely sum on legal fees to date the city has to be looking at any offer to settle that might have been made.
Last week the city disclosed that it had spent $2.1 million on fighting the Nelson Aggregate application for an additional permit to quarry on the Mt. Nemo plateau. That was a good fight that took many, many months of hearings. The cost of the legal stuff on the pier will make the Nelson hearings look like chump change.
Next week, Henry Schilthuis undergoes discovery as does the city’s Director of Engineering Tom Eichenbaum. Ir is interesting to note that neither Phil Kelly or Tim Commisso are part of the discovery process – both were key players and on the city’s payroll when the problems with the toppling crane and the concrete pour that failed took place.
It’s getting interesting down at city hall. Different Councillors are beginning to talk casually about where the developer is wrong and that the city has a solid case.
Stay tuned.
As for the actual construction of the pier – that’s going great. There is every reason to expect the thing to open officially during the Sound of Music festivities in June of this year. The contractor (one of four who bid on the pier)
 Early morning view of the pier in September. Some time was lost in October due to weather but November and December weather was decent enough to get some work done. Rails and the node that will have the tower with the observation deck in place are now into fabrication. who won the tender with a bid of $6,429.700 is on time – on budget wouldn’t apply to this job because of the nifty way the city has handled the amount that was saved when the wind turbine got thrown under the bus at a Council meeting.
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON January 31, 2012 Burlington’s Public Involvement Coordinator is setting up a focus group with people from each ward in the city to talk about home based business’s – which at this point aren’t legal in Burlington – although there are tons of them in the city.
 Christine Iamonaco, Burlington’s Public Involvement coordinator is facilitating a focus group to gather views and feelings about the current home-based business bylaw. By not being legal the city means you cannot employ a person and have that person working out of your house. You can be a hair dresser and toil away by yourself – but you can’t hire another person as a hair dresser and pay that person a wage.
It’s been a bit of a sticky issue. People who provide a service feel they should be able to do so and hire other people to work for them. The man who fixes out lawn mower works out of his garage – is that considered his home? For a lot of guys the garage is home – but I digress.
There are people in some neighbourhoods who don’t want abnormal traffic coming and going to a home that has a couple of woman working as hair dressers.
The city appears to want to review the bylaw that governs all this.
Home-based businesses have been described as a growing and dynamic part of Burlington’s local economy with hairdressers, music lessons and pet grooming given as examples.
City staff is looking for 6 to 8 people to take part in a 1 ½ -hour focus group conversation about home-based businesses in Burlington. They want to learn about your experiences with home-based businesses in your area.
 Should people be permitted to run a dog grooming business out of their homes? Focus group being held to get answers to that question. The city is looking for one person from each ward; people who operate a home-based business; • people who live next door to, or near-by to a home-based business and people who live in single detached, semi-detached, or multi-residential units including townhouse, condo, or apartment.
The focus group session will take place on February 5, 2013, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Burlington City Hall. Compensation for participating is $50.00.
If you think this might be something that interests you or something you have an opinion on answer the questions below and email them to christine.iamonaco@burlington.ca by Feb 4, 2013. If you are selected for the focus group, city staff will phone you to confirm your participation.
Cut and past with the answers in place and email to: iamonacoc@burlington.ca Put words focus group in the subject line
Home Based Business Focus Group Participant Application
Name: _____________________________
Ward and/or Postal Code:____________
Dwelling type: single detached house semi-detached home or multi-residential unit
Indicate if you are: a home-based business operator OR a home-based business neighbor or near-by resident
Phone number(s):________________
Your E-mail address:________________
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON January 30, 2013 The Ontario Business Confidence Index, an index produced by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, shows that most Ontario businesses are confident in their own outlook (72 percent) and are planning to expand over the next five years (60 percent). However, the same businesses are unsure about the overall direction of Ontario’s economy–41 percent express confidence.
The index is a survey of 2,386 businesses and was conducted as part of Emerging Stronger 2013, a business-driven economic agenda for Ontario released today by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, along with their research partner, the Mowat Centre at the University of Toronto.
 A lot of money was spent on the presentation but the clientele needed to make a go of it just didn’t appear. Emerging Stronger 2013 is a transformational agenda aimed at accelerating Ontario’s economic growth. It identifies Ontario’s challenges and advantages, and sets out practical and detailed recommendations for government and business.
Some of its key recommendations include: enabling better access to capital for start-ups and small businesses through crowd funding; encouraging businesses to employ more Aboriginal people and people with disabilities; opening up more government services to private sector and not-for-profit delivery; utilizing Ontario’s large immigrant population to grow exports; and, allowing more employers to participate in training.
 The shingle had to come down after more than a year of solid effort – the customer base just wasn’t big enough for Celestial Beauty. The disposable income that many thought would drift from the several condominiums on Lakeshore Road just didn’t make its way to this shop. The agenda comes days after Kathleen Wynne was named Ontario’s next premier and is intended to provide a non-partisan platform that should appeal to all three parties.
 Keith Hoey and the Chamber of Commerce Emerging Stronger agenda will sit well with parts of the commercial sector but the several small business types in the core that went out of business this month don’t see it quite that way. “The OCC’s Emerging Stronger agenda is truly transformative for Ontario,” said Keith Hoey, President of the Burlington Chamber of Commerce. “It outlines a plan for the provincial and federal governments to work together with private and not-for-profit sectors to achieve success.”
“The Ontario Chamber of Commerce has crisscrossed this province engaging and hearing from local chambers and their 60,000 members,” said Allan O’Dette, CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. “We are confident that Ontario has all the assets to prosper, but we need to act collectively, strategically, and with purpose.”
“This Index is one of the largest surveys ever conducted of business opinion in Ontario,” according to Dave Scholz, Vice President of Leger Marketing, the pollster. “Business sentiment is very much ‘glass half-full’ in the province right now.”
Among the survey findings are:
Ontario is falling behind on productivity: only 10 percent of respondents believe their sector is a global leader in productivity.
Some sectors are much more confident than others: the financial services sector is the most confident in their own outlook (74 percent say their business will expand in the next 5 years).
Businesses are struggling to diversify their exports: 45 percent of Ontario businesses view China as the most critical market in the next 5-10 years. Yet only 1.4 percent of Ontario’s exports are bound for China.
Some regions are more confident than others: Greater Hamilton Area businesses are most likely to respond that the economy is heading in the right direction (48 percent), while Eastern Ontario businesses are the least likely (36 percent).
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON. January 30, 2012 City council going into a closed session is not unusual. They do seem to go private a little too much when the pier is involved but that is a legal mess.
Monday evening the Mayor advised Council that there would be a Closed Session at the end of the regular council meeting. Again – not unusual. But when he said it was to “discuss a confidential legal matter about the Brant Street Pier” my ears shot up.
Wasn’t it earlier in the week that the Mayor said in his State of the City address that all was well on the waterfront? Yes, he did say: I am very pleased to advise that meaningful progress has been made on the Brant Street Pier in 2012. Work has continued in the winter and staff expect the ribbon to be cut in June.
 Is that an offer to settle rising above the under construction pier or have the lawyers in Hamilton just turned on the lights over there? This wasn’t surprising. Construction is going well. The contractor has managed to pour some concrete and while 11 days were lost when Sandy hurricane hit the United States all was well. So well that plans for the Official Opening during the Sound of Music festival were underway if only in a preliminary way. The largest service club group in the city is talking to staff about some ideas they have.
While construction is going well – things on the legal side are actually beginning to move along as well. That process lawyers call “discovery” where each side gets to ask the other about information that has come out of documents each side has made available to the other begins. Because there are so many players in this game close to a month has been set aside.
This legal quagmire is not just the city suing Harm Schilthuis and Sons Ltd. , and AECOM plus a bunch of smaller players for $7,500,000. Schilthuis is counter-suing the city for $2,699,344.32.
The first version of the pier was to be built for $6.9 million – that figure worked it’s way up to the $15.9 million the project has cost to date.
The rocket scientists out there can do the math with those numbers. Do you see the “win-win” for the city in there somewhere?
February 4th – Ross Steel goes through the process
February 5th – PV&V gets its turn
February 6th – Lombard Insurance gets to talk and answer questions
February 7th – Brave, a concrete company gets its turn.
February 8th EFCO Canada Company
February 11th , 12th and 13th Harm Schilthuis and Sons Ltd. is in the room
February 14th Burlington’s Director of Engineering, Tom Eichenbaum gets to answer questions.
February 15th – Zurich Insurance is up.
The Judge handling this case has apparently allowed extra time for Eichenbaum to answer questions.
At this stage in the proceedings all the evidence is on the table. The city has turned over 23,000 pages of information consisting of emails and reports – anything that was written down relating to the construction of the pier. The prime contractor Harm Schilthuis and Sons Ltd. has given the city 17.000 pages.
With all the evidence on the table lawyers on both sides question witnesses and delve into the details as they build their case. Why did you say this in that document; what did you mean when you wrote that – that kind of thing.
Lawyers get a pretty good sense of where their case is going once they have gone through all the documents and if there is going to be a settlement before a case goes to court – this is the time to have a conversation. Who takes that first step and how they take it is a critical part of the legal dance.
One side doesn’t want appear weak by asking if “perhaps we can talk”. That’s what lawyers do for a living.
Knowing this – one had to wonder – what was it that the city solicitor Nancy Shea Nicol wanted to talk to city council about in a closed session?
The Mayor had said all was well on Thursday.
 Construction of the pier was going just fine in the fall with very little time lost due to weather. The legal case was moving along just as well. Will there be a settlement before the pier is opened? Methinks someone has suggested there might be a possible settlement before things go any further. Who talked to who and when? We don’t know but we are pretty sure the city is engaged in a conversation.
The Closed Session lasted for about 50 minutes after which council decided to:
Refer memo dated January 28, 2013 from Nancy Shea Nicol, City Solicitor, providing a litigation update on the Brant Street pier; and Direct the City Solicitor to provide further information to the Budget & Corporate Services Committee meeting of February 5, 2013.
What that means is that the city solicitor sent Council a memo; they discussed that memo in a Closed Session of Council and then directed to city solicitor to provide more information to a council committee that meets next Tuesday.
We can’t wait to hear what gets said: will they do that in a Closed Session as well?
Stay tuned.
 By Margaret Lindsay Holton
BURLINGTON, ON January 31st, 2013 Looking for something a bit different to do with the family or grand-parents on a cold Saturday morning this winter? Bundle up the gang and head over to the TERRA Greenhouse on the north side of Dundas Street between Guelph Line and Brant Street.
Perfectly situated on the dividing line between North and South Burlington, the downtown lake-side crowd will be pleased that they don’t have to venture too far up into the ‘unknown hinterland’ of the escarpment. North Burlington country folk will be pleased that they don’t have to ‘dress up’ to descend into the tony suburbia of Burlington. This well-placed winter market is casual, inviting, and tasteful. Literally.
- Large & lush TERRA Greenhouse welcomes vendors and visitors on Saturdays from 10am to 3pm.
As you stamp off the snow from your boots, your tootsies will soon warm up in this well-heated sun-lit huge glass greenhouse. You’ll be welcomed by tasty samples of a wide range of delectable consumables, like raspberry-saturated truffles or mouth-watering bacon-smoked fresh salmon. Taste testing is encouraged by most vendors, but careful what you nibble. I had one mouthful of the smoked salmon pate and promptly plunked down ten dollars for a critical winter’s supply …
 Smokeville’s husband-and-wife team offer mouth-watering smoked rainbow trout and a variety of delicious smoked salmon products. Exotic highly spiced teas compliment a wide variety of freshly baked ‘local’ pastries. Hardy rustic uncut sour-dough bread loaves beckon, as do delicately decorated orange-chocolate cup-cakes. Fresh meat pies can be had with a quart of well-scrubbed late-harvest turnips or beets. And don’t forget to get your quota of concentrated sour cherry juice: an excellent all-round good health elixir.
 A familiar face from the Burlington Mall summer market, this mother-daughter team offer concentrated sour cherry juice, guaranteed to fix what ails you. Artfully arranged around the greenhouse’s bubbling fountain, strategic floral arrangements by TERRA green the space. Tables are stacked high with local wares by food and craft artisans. There’s really something for every taste. Yes, a tad more expensive then your local super-market, but frankly, it’s such a pleasing mish-mash of enticing stuff, you’ll soon find yourself enthusiastically supporting these local mum-and-pop enterprses.
Tired of standing? Rest your bones in the convenient festive TERRA garden furniture displays. You never know, you just might decide to re-do your summer patio. TERRA attendants are on hand to assist with your purchase if you do. I found their service helpful and informative, not pushy.
 The Little Truffle Maker offers her wares. Taste testing is obligatory! If you’re not interested in the excellent food produce, you can always sniff exotic expensive hand-crafted soaps or hand-made packets of room freshening lavender. Or, try on a well-knitted toque and scarf combo in a wide variety of joyful colours. Grab a budding cactus or ruby red orchid on route.
It’s always great when a new venture hits pay dirt. Timing is everything. Would this IDEA have worked two years ago? Hard to say. But today, the TERRA greenhouse on Dundas Street has a ‘hit’ on its hands. So much so, there’s talk of opening another Winter Market up in Milton.
Nothing succeeds like success. Without a doubt, this is a win-win venture. The TERRA greenhouse could well have remained dormant over the winter months, but this resourceful interpretation of ‘space’ welcomes all who seek an enjoyable and novel Saturday sojourn. Local food vendors now have a warm and inviting place to sell their specialty items without incurring a crushing overhead. Visitors won’t be disappointed. It is a festive and welcoming event.
- Pies ‘n Such offered great gift packages of 5 tasty items for five dollars.
Do head over earlier rather then later. Doors open at 10am on Saturday and close at 3pm. The place was packed last Saturday by 10:30am.
The Winter Market runs until the end of March. Free parking. Free entry.
And don’t forget to try those FREE lip-smacking taste-testing morsels.
Don’t miss the Winter Market on Saturdays @ TERRA Greenhouse in North Burlington.
Margaret Lindsay Holton is both an environmentalist and a community activist. She is an artist of some renown and the designer of a typeface. She is also a photographer and the holder of opinions, which are her own, that she will share with you in an instant. She appears as an Our Burlington columnist every two weeks. All photographs are by MLH unless otherwise indicated.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON January 6, 2013 You live in Burlington; you shopped and therefore you shopped at the malls. I didn’t know Burlington had that many cars until I went looking for a place to park at Mapleview Mall Christmas Eve day – but I found a spot and, as is my habit, did all my shopping in less than an hour – knew what I wanted to buy and where it was being sold. Then I strolled along the different levels and saw a few things I had not thought of and that was my Christmas Shopping – done.
 You didn’t pick up much Christmas spirit along this stretch of Brant Street if you walked along it during the holiday. Earlier in the week I had occasion to be on lower Brant Street and wondered what had happened. There was nothing to suggest that it was Christmas – well yes, there were those pitiful little lights on the street lamp poles. Even Civic Square had a lackluster look to it – until the lights were on and then it looked decent enough.
I thought perhaps it was just the bottom of Brant Street that had been ignored – so walked north to Caroline and then on up to Prospect – and it was even more grim.
So what’s with this phrase we use about having a “vibrant” downtown core that is a pleasant place to shop and meet with friends?
 Once the location for one of the better “hotels” in town this Emshih property doesn’t have even a Christmas twig on it. The pictures that accompany this article show precious little in the way of Seasonal decoration – with the exception being the works who showed some creativity.
Last year the Burlington Downtown Business Association (BDBA) held a contest for the best displays – several of which were very innovative, Especially the one done up by the condo sales agency on Lakeshore. Did that competition get cancelled this year?
Even with the contest last year, lower Brant didn’t look all that well then either. Emshih Developments owns a number of the properties along Brant; one would have hoped they would put some of the profits back into the community. They found it useful to financially support the Mayor’s One Dream that we are told we will hear more about sometime in January.
 The opportunity to do something really spectacular with this storefront was lost to one of the reputedly better marketers in the city. This was embarrassing.  The Works, a new franchise in town that created a buzz on their opening day by offering a free burger. They have the most innovative storefront look of the Season. Is that because they are new and don’t know any better – Burlington doesn’t appear to “do” Christmas.  It didn’t get any better when you got off Brant Street. One would have thought that a pub with the name Dickens would have taken the spirit of the season in its teeth and done the place up really nice. They opted to spend twenty bucks on stuff from the dollar store. Can you feel the vibrancy?  The Downtown Business Association used to support this effort financially – they had to cut back – Burlington Hydro took up the slack. So what is it that BDBA does for their members? The BDBA had to tell the Festival of Lights people that the $5000 donation they traditionally made to that organization, which sets up the lights that are dotted throughout Spencer Smith Park and along Lakeshore Road would not be forthcoming in 2012. Fortunately Burlington Hydro came to the rescue.
During the Car Free Sunday last summer that saw Brant Street closed to traffic so that people could stroll the streets and ride bicycles in complete safety and shop if they wished – there were stores that didn’t bother to open. There were people at the Caroline – Brant Street intersection close to spitting nickels because of the traffic delays – had they known this was all to aid the objective of getting people out of their cars – and that some stores didn’t open; one wonders how they would have applied the word vibrant to that situation?
There seems to be a mis-alignment here. Is the BDBA an organization that has lost its drive or purpose? Anyone within the BDBA boundary pays a tax levy whether they like it or not. Are they getting value for what they are paying?
Those retailers also pay into a parking levy which in lieu of providing on site parking. That parking levy was used by the Bridgewater development on Lakeshore as the plank on which they built their argument about not having to provide parking space – instead they would pay into the levy just the way other downtown core business people do. With 150 + hotel rooms and two condo’s – there is going to be a parking need. A problem brewing there that someone at Planning hasn’t thought through.
The restaurants were doing a very brisk business on the Thursday and Friday leading up to the start of the seasonal holiday for city hall. Impossible to get a parking spot in the lot off Elizabeth Street.
In the fall the city held a Downtown Workshop that filled the Art Centre as people listened to a consultants report and took part in exercises where they got to trot out their ideas and visions. All good stuff – we suppose but one can`t see any new ideas on our main downtown streets.
Is it even possible to grow our downtown to the point where it is a busy, vibrant, profitable place for retail and serviced people to locate?
Sheila Bottin, the Deloitte consultant the city has hired to advise on what kind of commercial office space can be built on the John Street and Elizabeth Street parking lots has told the city to “forgetaboutit” – developers can’t get the rents they need to cover the cost of providing those underground parking places. And no one is going to take a bus downtown – they would rather take the GO into Toronto.
 Brian Dean, Executive Director of the BDBA works his tail off for his association. Is he beating a dead horse The Village Square is up for sale with much gnashing of teeth on the part of the public, or so we are told, but the location no longer works for many retailers. There was a time when it was THE hot spot in the city but some less than wise management practices resulted in many restaurants fleeing to Brant Street where rents were more manageable. Brian Dean, president of the BDBA, will tell you the biggest favour Jack Friedman, owner of Village Square, did for him was when he revised the rental agreements: “those people moved to Brant Street suddenly the downtown core had a future.
But that future is stymied. Management mistakes by others are not what one builds a business plan on. Dean is tireless in his work for his association – it would be nice to see his association members doing as much for themselves as he does for them. Perhaps Dean has done all he can do and someone else should take the helm? Something isn’t working.
Jody Wellings has toiled tirelessly at city hall on the city’s core commitment and never fails to bring a positive attitude to the job – but there don’t appear to be any solutions that are gaining traction. What is it we’re missing here?
Brant Street is a great place to be during the Sound of Music but RibFest and the Children’s Festival don’t do much for the retailers.
It might be too early to tell if the Performing Arts Centre has had the hoped for impact on the restaurant business. Melodia Mediteranean Cuisine and Bar opened and is getting decent reviews but Prime Rib announced a move from Brant around the corner to Locust, a stone throw from the Performing Arts Centre close to a year ago and it has yet to open its doors.
We’ve not seen solid attendance and audited numbers from the PAC people yet, so we don’t know what the attendance has been. The line-up has been impressive but everyone knew, or should have known, that it was going to be a long painful labour getting the place to the point where it had created a market for live entertainment and a following for specific kinds of entertainment.
 For a retailer that sells poinsettias by the truck load this is just not a Christmas look. The feel of Brant Street is in the hands of the retailers; they decide what they want to do to their store fronts. If they are bare and uninviting – people stay away. Yes, parking is a problem but it doesn’t take long to get a parking spot, just some patience. But one needs a reason to go downtown – and if the storefronts are as dowdy as they were in the photographs we took – heck I’ll drive to Oakville, which by the way got written up in a Toronto electronic magazine as the place with the nicest Christmas feel to it on the main street.
Mayor Goldring’s former Chief of Staff, Frank McKeown, may have figured out the solution when he said “Forever Elvis” will work. If all else fails – perhaps?
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON December 8, 2012 The Burlington Economic Development Corporation (BEDC) has named Pasquale Paletta as the 2013 Entrepreneur of the Year.
Paletta founded Paletta International, a Canadian-owned and family-managed company, in 1951.
 Pasquale Paletta, named Burlington Economic Development Corporation’s Entrepreneur of the year for 2013. “I am very thankful and honoured to be named the 2013 Burlington Entrepreneur of the Year,” Paletta said. “Burlington has always been home. Burlington has grown together with me and I look forward to our future growth and continued partnership with the city to continue its growth and achieve our combined dreams. I hope I can do more for Burlington.”
Paletta came to Canada as an Italian immigrant after the Second World War and moved his family to Burlington in 1964 and started a 10,000-square foot meat packing plant.
Today, the family has a facility of more than 200,000 sq.ft. and exports to more than 17 countries worldwide.
The family is believed to be the largest holder of undeveloped lands in Burlington and has in the past number of years fought the city on almost every development project it has started.
 Paletta International head office in Burlington His family has developed thousands of residential units, constructed more than 500,000 sq. ft. of buildings, developed hundreds of acres of property for retail and employment, farmed thousands of acres and expanded into film, media and entertainment.
Over the past eight years, BEDC has inducted the following acclaimed business people into Burlington’s Business Hall of Fame: Harry Voortman (Voortman Cookies), Mark Chamberlain (Trivaris), Michael Lee-Chin (AIC Ltd. /Portland Holdings), Michael DeGroote Sr. (Laidlaw/Republic), Ron Joyce (Tim Horton’s), Murray Hogarth (Pioneer Petroleums), Ron Foxcroft (Fox40 International) and Reginald Pollard (Pollard Windows Inc.).
Each year a call for nominations is sent out to the business community. Then a nominating committee made up of BEDC board of directors chooses the entrepreneur by using stringent evaluation criteria.
“We have been very fortunate to have had some of Burlington’s most successful entrepreneurs inducted into our Business Hall of Fame, Mr. Paletta is an ideal choice for this significant accomplishment,” said Alf Zeuner, chair of the BEDC’s board of directors. “It was with great interest to review the achievements of all nominees. Making the decision of the final recipient was not easy as Burlington is home to many outstanding entrepreneurs.”
The award will be presented at BEDC’s annual signature event, which will be held on Thursday, June 6 at the Burlington Convention Centre.
 The Paletta International head office operation is massive and includes the poultry packing operation as well as administrative and property management divisions. The Paletta interests were instrumental in an attempt to bring the Hamilton Tiger Cats to Burlington and make the city their “home” town. Mayor Goldring, new to the office of Mayor at the time didn’t champion that idea.
Several of the Paletta developments before the city are tied up in differences of opinion or before the Ontario Municipal Board.
Angelo Paletta, Pasquale Paletta’s son, was one of 35 people chosen by Mayor Goldring to be part of the group involved with the Mayor in defining the dream for Burlington.
The Paletta family donated a large sum to the restoration of a mansion on Lakeshore Road now known as the Paletta Mansion.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON November 23, 2012 Becoming an entrepreneur is now fashionable; it’s hip. And if you’re a budding entrepreneur then you need a Mentor. Learning how to choose a mentor has become another arrow in the quiver of any university graduate looking for a job or the person out of a job, which is the pool of people producing the entrepreneurs.
The Pythons’ Pit project, a Halton Rotary initiative being led by Fareen Samji and Tom McLeod, is getting close to its day of deliverance when applications have to be in for the $150,000 that is available for entrepreneurs who can convince a group of proven business start-up people that they have the right stuff and can make money out of an idea and their energy.
A group of people who have ideas and want to move them forward but need more funding to make that happen met at e-spot over in Oakville recently. They were there to do early practice pitches on their ideas – sort of like a baseball pitcher being in the bullpen practicing. This is the place you can make the mistakes that are going to be part of your success.
 Tina Turner on the left with Donna Messer critique funding proposals for entrepreneurs who want to appear before the Pythons’ Pit. There were a lot of mistakes made at the e-spot meeting. Of the close to a dozen people making presentations there really wasn’t one that was fully prepared. There were a couple of ideas that had potential and one that could be funded almost immediately.
Everyone has to start somewhere but the starters have to do more hard work and the people commenting on their efforts have to be quite a bit tougher with their comments and criticisms. At some point some of these people are going to get funded and if what we saw last week is the best they have – then a lot of money is going to be lost on ideas that have not been fully researched. There wasn’t one person in the group that had financial projections. None set out what they needed financially or how long it would take them to break even.
The critical comment was pretty soft. You don’t do budding entrepreneurs any favours when you soft pedal the criticism. The consumer spending their dollars will be brutal in their choices. People want value for what they pay money for and if the value isn’t there, they don’t buy and the business goes belly up. Not a pretty picture.
There was however some excellent advice given by Jeremy O’Krafka, a man who has made a business out of the mentoring business by organizing people who were interested in becoming mentors and people who needed a mentor but didn’t know how to find one.
One of his claims to fame is having held the World’s Largest Business Mentoring Event which got him into the Guinness Book of Records – and that is going to do what for his business? A conversation ice breaker I guess.
While talking to people who wanted to be entrepreneurs O’Krafka, who can be found at his web site, made a number of very, very useful points. His starting point was that you need a mentor and laid out three tips for protégés to get themselves ready for a mentor.
Be Prepared advised OKrafka: “Know who you’re meeting with – research your mentor before you meet. With all of the information that’s available on the web, there’s no excuse to not conduct a background check.”
Use your time wisely: “Get to the point. There are certainly networking situations that require the customary social niceties. But, if the agreed upon purpose of the meeting, is for the mentor to provide advice on your business, let that be the focus. One mentor told us how he called out the protégé he was meeting with, for wasting the first 2 minutes on fluff – welcome to someone who values their time.”
Take Action: “Strive to have at least one action oriented take away from each mentor that you meet with. Do it. Follow up with your mentor to let them know the outcome. There’s nothing that says our time together was worthwhile like a message to say thank you – and this is the progress I’ve made.”
OKrafka had some very solid advice – there is more that we will share with you as we follow the progress and development of the Pythons’ Pit.
Entries close December 1. The organizers are expecting a number of entries from students at the McMaster University, DeGroote School of Business and from students taking business courses at Sheridan College.
The entries will be judged by six area entrepreneurs who will determine where the $150,000 seed money will go and may, if they see potential that interests them personally, invest some of their own money.
The six are:
John Romano, owner of Nickle Brook brewery and operator of Better Bitters Brewing Company, is one of the six Pythons that will be looking critically at the proposals. At 27 years old, Romano dramatically altered his career path: he gave up aerospace engineering to open a small home brewery in Burlington called Better Bitters.
Randy Pilon, founder and current president and chief executive officer of Virox Technologies Inc. in Oakville, Ont., spent 14 years with Bausch & Lomb, where he rose through the ranks eventually becoming Corporate Vice President of the Canadian subsidiary. In 1998, Pilon founded Virox, a company with a patented technology in disinfection and sterilization.
Susanne Mikler, Co-founder and Owner of LC Liaison College | Culinary Arts, an organization that has more than 11 campuses located throughout Southern Ontario, Mikler and her business partner, husband Rudy Florio, have made Liaision College the fourth best culinary arts school in the world.
Nadir Ansari grew up in London, Ontario where his unquenchable curiosity and affinity for music, math and personal refinement came to life. After completing his Master’s thesis on Statistical Modeling of Bridge Loading from the University of Western Ontario, he joined forces with Brian Isherwood, to become partner and eventual owner and CEO of Isherwood Associates.
George Minakakis, is a Milton businessman and global retail leader. During his tenure with the Luxottica Group, he was solely responsible for the Canadian divisions of LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sunglass Hut and Licensed Brands with a combined store count of more than 300 locations across Canada. He also served as Chief Executive Officer for Greater China including Hong Kong where he was responsible for the expansion of Luxottica’s Premium brand LensCrafters with over 250 locations.
Don Dalicandro is Chief Executive Officer of ASI, a software company serving the mobile field workforce needs of Fortune 1000 North American clients. He has over twenty-five years experience working with large and medium sized companies in diverse business sectors including finance, manufacturing, consumer goods, oil and gas, field service, commercial office construction and leasing, retail and food service.
 Grace Attard of the e-Spot, outlines the program for budding entrepreneurs who want to hone their pitch to the Pythons’ Pit. There are a lot of people very interested in seeing how this initiative works out. Do we live in a community that fosters innovation and creative thinking? Do we have people in the community that will do the really hard work that it takes to get a business off the ground? Do we have mentors that are tough and direct with their critical comment or do we have people who want to play nice?
Personally, I didn’t see the kind of grit that it takes at the e-spot event. Nice people, some interesting ideas but none were really fleshed out and except for one – there just isn’t a market for the idea.
e-Spot, is a place where people, wanting to develop a business and have an idea they are passionate about, might want to be aware of and look into. Located at 353 Iroquois Shore Road just off Trafalgar in Oakville, with Grace Attar ready to answer questions. They have a membership program some might find useful and provide various consulting services geared to those who are not ready for and can’t afford the big consulting outfits. Worth looking into.
We will follow this.
 By Margaret Lindsay Holton
BURLINGTON, ON November 22, 2012 Earlier this year I wrote about the BusinessInBurlington MeetUp organized by social media entrepreneur James Burchill. Since that time I’ve been intrigued by the continued proliferation of other Meetup groups in the area. There’s a group now for just about every interest imaginable: books, games, movies, health, pets, meditation, drumming, careers and even odd-ball hobbies. Seek and ye shall find.
 Not quite a WANTED poster at the Post Office but a good representation of the kind of people who show up at meetings of the Burlington in Business MeetUp. Attendance roared up to 300 plus – which is pretty close to the capacity of the Beaver and the Bullfrog pub at the Waterfront Hotel. For those unsure of what ‘MeetUp’ is all about: the idea was started by two New York City techie entrepreneurs, Scott Heiferman and Brendan McGovern. The attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, was pivotal to the formation of their ‘meet-in-person’ concept. Meetup co-founder Scott Heiferman says that the manner in which people came together in the aftermath of that traumatic event inspired him to use the internet to make it easier for people to connect with strangers in their community. These young gents launched their ‘interactive’ website in New York in 2001. Now, eleven years later, there are over 11 million registered Meetup users and over 110,000 groups world-wide. In Burlington and the Region of Halton, there are reputed to be over 513 groups. Personally, I found about 40 Meetups catering to a diversity of interests in the area.
 Meetups are all about people and the way they choose to spend their time. In this montage photographer Margaret Lindsay Holton has caught the feel of a Burlington in Business MeetUp organized by James Burchill. It’s easy to start a specific Meetup forum, (a monthly fee of less then $30 gets your group up and running), and easy too to join any other Meetup group for free. Add your personal tastes and preferences during sign up, then off you go. At all times the option to attend any Meetup is entirely voluntary. The point of all this ‘meeting up’ is to find friends and/or associates who share your interests, and then, basically, enjoy yourselves. One of the perks of this kind of ‘focused’ meeting is that a lot of preliminary ‘social sorting’ doesn’t have to occur. All attending know that all attending are there for the same reason, whatever that might be.
A sample of Burlington and regional Meetup groups follows. Once on the group page of any Meetup group, click on the Home Page to find an overview of what that group offers.
FTDTW or ‘Friends to Do Things With’ is a relatively new addition to the Meetup community having formed in January of this year. Yet obviously they’ve hit a nerve, because 87 events later, they now have over 500 members, 30 years of age and up. What do they do? Meet at bars, clubs, the Ribfest, restaurants, movie theatres and cafes.
Sassy Bookworms have been around a bit longer, and have a very loyal following. Started in July 2010, with now over 200 members. Sassy Bookworm Meetups usually occur in members’ residences and are limited to 30 or so sassy bookworms per event. They get together to discuss a new title by a different author once per month. (You’re going to love their Marilyn Monroe-with-a-book logo!)
The Burlington Photography Meetup Group was founded in April, 2010, and now has just under 200 members. Designed for both amateur and professional photographers, the Meetups are social photographic outings in the region.
Looking for alternate cuisine ideas? Try vegetarian with a friendly vegan groups – The Burloak-Vegetarian Meetup Group or Danielle Roche’s inspired Eat Local Burlington group.
 Details Happy Veggie Heads As Eat Local Meetup organizer Danielle says, “After reading the ‘100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating’, I am inspired to eat more organic foods grown within 250 km of Burlington. It has been an amazing experience visiting farms, markets and meeting other local food enthusiasts.” Since August 2010, over 240 locavores have signed up with this Burlington-based Meetup group. There have been over 120 ‘local’ foodie events organized by Danielle. Now that’s commitment!
Interested in Salsa dancing? You’d be surprised the number of Meetup groups within a 250 km radius who have, or are preparing, Salsa dance events. Check out the very popular 400 plus members of the Llamas Meetup group of Mississauga: or, in Oakville, the smaller group – Salsa Night/Noche de Salsa – Don’t want to dance, but want to drum? The 500 strong Burlington-based Naked Beat Drum Meetup hosts frequent events.
Tin ear, no twinkle toes? Never fear. The Halton-Peel Social Group (over 400 members) is hosting a ‘big screen’ event of The 100th Grey Cup – between the Toronto Argonauts & the Calgary Stampeders at Philthy McNasty’s (Oakville location) on Sunday from 4 to 10 pm. A small $2 cover with RSVP is requested. Bar, big screen, beer, passionate fans: what more could you want?
 Too much noise ? Ok. Try ‘urban buddism’, or meditation, with the Centre for Compassion and Wisdom, founded in October, 2011. This group now has 57 members located in Burlington: Don’t like that group? Try Burlington Meditation: OR, join the Quick Brown Fox Meetup group on Novermber 24th at the Appleby United Church on Spruce Ave for a workshop on ‘How to write a Page-Turner’ Workshop leader Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing teacher for more than 25 years. He teaches at Ryerson University and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo. His proudest boast is that he has helped many of his students get published. The workshop runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fee: $44 paid in advance or $48 at the door.
 If over 50, single, and just want to ‘mingle’ for a bit, try the very popular 500 member strong Singles Mosaic – Founded in 2009 by social director, Diona Szcerbak, she too charges a small cover fee for organizing these socials-for-active-seniors events. Small price to pay, really, to make new old friends.
One of Burlington’s newest Meetup groups, Mommy Connections, just started up on November 1st, 2012. There are only four members. Hard to know whether they’ll be a success or not, because unlike many of the other Meetup groups that charge, if at all, a small ‘admin/entrance’ fee, this group is hoping to have new mums fork out $120 for an 8 week class.
Contrasting that group with the explosive growth in popularity of the Burlington’s ‘League of Extraordinary Ladies’ – (founded in January 2012, with now over 140 members), it would seem that Mommy Connections is off to a rocky start.
Still, that’s the fun of these Meetups. Some ‘click’, while others don’t. Like-minded gravitate towards like-minded. It’s up to YOU how engaged you want to be.
 A member of the League of Extraordinary Ladies A lot of the success of a Meetup group comes down to the personality, passion and administrative attention of the principal organizer. Jessica Dennis of ‘Extraordinary Ladies’ is passionate about “bringing women together for the benefit of gathering ideas, bridging business cultures and changing lives! This group is intended for women from all walks of life.”
Whatever your passion or interest, you’ll find like-minded people on Meetup.com.
Still not sure? Consider this ‘what’s it like’ video.
Some Meetup groups can become victims of their own success. The Business In Burlington (BiB) Meetup frequently has a waiting list now for its monthly get-togethers at the Beaver & Bulldog on the Lakeshore. On average, 120 people get together monthly. Very popular with the small business, IT and entrepreneurial crowd, BiBers are working this social network to ‘get connected’ and ‘get ahead’. So, if you are interested, be sure to RSVP your attendance early.
One additional small note: once you do ‘join’ Meetup, make sure you set your ‘group alerts’ for once a week, or once a month depending, again, on your level of interest, otherwise, you will be bombarded by incoming Meetup mail. This has been a growing problem with the Business in Burlington group. With well over 700 members and an active ‘on-line’ forum, email is frequently clogged with their updates and self-promoting announcements. Still, all said and done, it remains an interesting bunch determined to make their Burlington a better place to live, work and play.
James, the BiB organizer, is such an accomplished enabler, perhaps he could mesh a few other local Meetup groups in the region to generate a ‘living picture’ of the DREAM that is Burlington for Mayor Goldring? There certainly seems a proliferation of paid consultants and INSPIRE events coming from City Hall that are working very hard to determine what Burlington is and should be all about. Maybe it would just be easier (and cheaper) if City hosted a monthly ‘Meetup’ at City Hall.
Sign up with Meetup here.
Margaret Lindsay Holton is both an environmentalist and a community activist. She is an artist of some renown and the designer of a typeface. She is also a photographer and the holder of opinions, which are her own, that she will share with you in an instant. She appears as an Our Burlington columnist every two weeks. All photographs are by MLH unless otherwise indicated.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON November 20, 2012 A project that has been in the works for more than 20 years cleared another hurdle and is one more hurdle away from applying for a building permit, which the city will have to issue. The Committee of Adjustment approved all 15 minor variances asked for by Mayrose Tyco, the company that has worked to put a “landmark” structure at the edge of Lake Ontario.
 What is now a flat empty lot on the south side of Lakeshore road will become a bustling construction site just about the time city council expects the pier to open. During the next three years, three structures will rise from the site – one 22 storeys into the sky. Burlington will finally have its landmark structure. Committee of Adjustment meets to handle minor variances that a citizen wants made to a zoning by-law, usually for something they want to do with their property.
The committee has a chair and four members appointed to the committee by the city. Each has a vote and the majority prevails. The Committee has to answer four questions in the affirmative in order for the variance being asked for to be granted. Those questions are:
1: Do the proposed minor variances from the zoning by-law maintain the general intent and purpose of the Official Plan?
2: Do the proposed minor variances from the zoning bylaw maintain the general intent and purpose of the zoning by-law?
3: Are the proposed minor variances from the zoning by-law desirable for the appropriate development or use of the land, building or structure?
4: Are the proposed minor variances from the zoning bylaw considered minor in nature.
Get a yes to all these and you’ll probably get what you were asking for – but you have to get that yes from at least three of the five members of the committee.
Last week, we attended our first ever Committee of Adjustment hearing because the Mayrose Tyco Corporation was asking for 15, yes 15 minor variances on the three structure project that is going to be built at the intersection of Lakeshore Road and Elizabeth streets. This one has been a long time coming and except for one more hearing at the Conservation Authority the project will be ready to apply for a building permit and then the digging begins.
It will be the largest construction undertaking this city has seen for some time. A builder hasn’t been appointed yet – the document needed from the Conservation Authority has to be in hand before they make that announcement.
But that Building Permit application is in the process of being drawn up.
The Riviera Motel is now nothing but a memory – the bulldozers were pulling that down last week.
The next step is readying the lot for the construction which is going to take at least three years.
 The rendering needs a really close look to fully understand what the developer had to work with and what is going to be built. Start with the open space in the centre. Due to the grade there is all kinds of terracing necessary to get people from the street level to the waterfront. No one in a wheel chair is going to get down that part of the site. There is a curved roadway to the east of the large condo on the right. There are opportunities for some very upscale commercial on the right side of the Courtyard in the middle. Can Burlington support that level of commercial? All three structures will go up at basically the same time – an eight story Delta four star hotel that will face Lakeshore Road and have an entrance on Elizabeth Street. The building got an additional storey in height to accommodate the 152 rooms that are a must if the hotel is to have a four star rating.
The buzz in the community was that the hotel would be open for the Pan American Games in 2015 – not true.
 The first look for the public at the Delta four star hotel that shaped much of the later design of the project. The entrance to the hotel will be off Elizabeth Street which will be pushed through to south of Lakeshore Road. The 22 storey condo is west of the hotel. An additional seven storey condo will be south of the hotel. The thinking is that the hotel won’t be completed in time and Four Stars in the hotel business that means quality – this one isn’t going to be rushed to completion.
The project is “four to six months behind our original planning” said Ken Dakin, the project planner who has been the project planner since 1999 – he was involved with the project as far back as 1997. He took the committee of Adjustment through each of the 15 variances he was asking for – and explained carefully the wisdom, as he saw it, of the changes he was asking the Committee to make.
There was a couple of what some might call “slights of hand” proposals, such as the decision to treat the hotel restaurant as one of the commercial elements that the Committee agreed to go along with. Another was the decision to convert some of the space on the east side of the hotel into residential rather than commercial. The argument put forward by the project planner, quite persuasively, and we thought correctly, was that commercial just wasn’t going to survive on the east side next to the walkway that leads down to the waterfront.
The 22 storey condo has a slight triangular shape to it; narrower at the south end than the north end which allowed for balconies that will give every unit owner a decent view of the lake. Balconies were not as in vogue when the project was first put forward. At that time the height was a proposed 33 storey structure. That didn’t fly.
 View from Lakeshore Road looking south to the lake – 22 storey condo on the left with the four star Delta hotel on the right. The access to the Courtyard is in between the two buildings. There is also a winding pathway that is already in place on the east side (the left side in this rendering) that leads to the waters edge. The Courtyard will be a series of shortish terraces to accommodate the grade which is actually quite steep. While the public continually said they wanted commercial activity to the sides of the open space that will stretch from Lakeshore Road to the water’s edge the builders are concerned about finding commercial tenants who want to locate and can survive financially in an area where cold winds will roar in off the lake on some of those colder winter days.
The hotel wants the site to be upscale and not have a Tim Horton’s that becomes a 24 hour hangout on the property. Finding the right commercial tenants will be a challenge. The hotel will have a coffee shop of its own but the site could probably support a second one that is part of the open space at the centre of the three buildings. A family restaurant would probably fit in as well – but where does one go from there? Maybe the Art Centre could be convinced to open up a retail outlet – but the rent would have to be a bit of a gift.
The entrances to the three levels of parking space that will serve all three structures will be at the second floor level and there will be just the one entrance which is going to mean some very tight scheduling for vehicles wanting to get in and out of the garage.
The zoning bylaw called for 3 metres of space between the edge of the southern part of the hotel. Given changes required by the Conservation Authority there wasn’t as much room as the planners originally had in mind. But at the early stage the plan was for a 125 room hotel. The need to move that up to 152 rooms – meant something had to give somewhere and that give is at the southern end of the hotel. Look carefully at the illustration to see the challenge the architects faced.
 The pathway to the east of the Mayrose Tyco project has been in place for a number of years. It was part of a land transfer that gave city land to the developer in exchange for the pathway and the walking space along the edge of the lake. The 22 storey condominium will sit beside the pathway. The developer asked that the requirement for 272 commercial parking spaces be cut back to 152 raised some eyebrows. The project planner explained the changes that have taken place since 2006 when the parking requirements were put in place.
In 2006 the property was not within the city’s Defined Parking area. That Defined Parking Area is a part of the downtown core that “shares” parking space in the several city parking lots. Properties within the Defined Parking Area can forgo the installation of on-site commercial parking and instead pay a levy to the city to guarantee access to the municipal lots and parking garages within the Defined Area.
Somewhere between 2006 and today that Defined Area boundary got moved to include the Mayrose Tyco development and with that stroke of a pen – there went the need for all that on-site commercial parking.
The 188 parking spaces for the residents who will eventually live in the condos still stands. What this means is a real tightening of parking space in the area around the site.
Accessible parking spaces also took a hit. There were to be 9 – the developer asked that it be reduced to 5. The argument was that if the commercial space was being reduced by 60% (that was the 272 down to 152) then it would follow that the accessible spaces would also be reduced by 60%. Explain the logic of that rationalization to people who need parking closer to the entrances of buildings.
There were a bunch of other small changes that made sense to the adjustment committee members who spent relatively little time on this application. Much more time was spent on an applicant who wanted to put an addition on a house that a neighbour felt would intrude on their privacy. That one didn’t get Committee of Adjustment approval.
The Bridgewater project will be a welcome addition to the city – it will be a wonderful site to spend time on and will open up a pathway from east of the Waterfront Hotel through to where the pier will be located and on into Spencer Smith Park.
 This picture taken from close to the walkway that leads to the waters edge with the now demolished Riviera Motel in the background give some sense of the rather steep grade the architects had to work with. A lot of terracing was needed to accommodate the drop from the street level to the waters edge. What is missing however is any sense of grandness to it all. The condo towers will soar into the sky and be the biggest thing this city has ever seen but on the ground it will be kind of cramped, small in scale and nowhere near what we see in European cities where public places are grander in scale.
The sad part is that the money behind this project is Austrian in nature. Pity that they didn’t bring the tradition of grand public places to Burlington.
There were four people taking part in the Committee of Adjustment meeting. Their concerns seemed to be related to how the structures would impact on their view of the lake. There are literally hundreds of people in the immediate area who are going to see a hugely different architecture in front of them and many will be very upset. Nothing they can do now – the appeal period is close to ending. Next step is a document from the Conservation Authority and then on to city hall for the building permit – which the city must give them.
 A view of the drop the architects had to work with as they redesigned the site when the larger hotel became part of the project. The hotel will come very close to the concrete pathway. It is a very challenging site. The Riviera Motel has been demolished. The developers have had this property in their hands for more than twenty years during which time they have seen little return on their investment. When the major changes to the original proposal were made in 2006 the thinking was that we would see construction equipment on the site within a year. The recession in 2000 put the bollocks to that plan. It was basically impossible to get anyone to become a partner in the project. Minto, a highly regarded developer in Toronto and Ottawa pulled out around 2010. Mayrose Tyco was then squeezed by the Conservation Authority who advised them that there were some regulatory changes about to come into force that would result in a deeper set back from the edge of the water. That would have changed far more than the developer wanted to even think about coping with.
They landed Delta as the hotel operator and re-worked the site to give the hotelier what they needed and still keep the condominium part of the project financially viable. Now all they need is a robust economy through to 2015 when the condo units will be very much in demand. Getting to this point meant some compromises from the original dream.
They chose to create a tight site rather than go for the expansiveness that we appreciate in Spencer Smith Park.
But twenty years is a long time to wait for a return. And it will be a wonderful place to live if you can afford one of the condo’s – especially in that 22 storey tower. Wonder what they will go for?
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON November 19, 2012 It is always interesting when a person who operates a business in the city; one that requires licensing and is overseen by a city department, suggests to the city that they might be able to offer an additional service and would like to try out a new idea.
Scott Wallace, president of Burlington Taxi did that last March when he took the idea of setting up a taxi shuttle service that would get people, who shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car, home once the bars in the downtown core closed and to drive people from bar to bar during the evening.
It worked, sort of, and well enough for Wallace to ask if he could run the same type of service between late November and the first of the new year. After very little discussion council committee said “sure, why not” and moved it along to a full council meeting.
What was disappointing was that the committee didn’t give the idea a lot of attention and no one thanked Scott Wallace for the idea and the initiative he took. The least he deserved was a “thank you”. Maybe he’ll get that at the council meeting.
 Ward 6 Councillor Blair Lancaster chats with Burlington Taxi president Scott Wallace during the Downtown visioning exercise recently. The idea was brought forward last March when Burlington Taxi made a formal request to Community Development Committee to operate a shuttle taxi service for the downtown restaurant and bar patrons. The proposed pilot was to operate during peak times of the year on Saturday nights from 11:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. after which time the City of Burlington would evaluate whether this would be a long term viable.
Council approved the pilot.
Overall, while the pilot project was not a huge success, the idea that there are options available for people to move about the downtown and to take people home during the peak times was seen as an important move forward in the area of alternative transportation said Manager of By-law Enforcement and Licensing, Tracey Burrows, who has the letters C.P.S.O., M.L.E.O. (c) behind her name; heaven only knows what they mean.
The goal of the Pilot, which ran from May 5, 2012 to September 1, 2012, was to evaluate operating larger capacity vehicles in the downtown core to assist in moving patrons between downtown bar locations during the late evening (11pm -1am) hours and then out of the downtown core in a more timely fashion during the bar rush period. (1 a.m. – 3 a.m.)
The Service Area for this pilot was bordered by QEW in the west, the Guelph Line in the east, Fairview Street in the north and Lakeshore road in the south. All patrons requiring rides outside of this area would use standard taxi services or other transportation of their choice.
Two Multi-passenger vehicles (Ford club vans) between the hours of 11PM and 3AM every Saturday night. beginning on May 5.
One van was used to shuttle people between different bars and began at Emmas Backporch at 11PM and drove a route:
1. Proceed to Pearl Street (Poacher)
2. Proceed to Elizabeth Street (Martini House/Dickens/Honey West)
3. Proceed to Brant Plaza using John Street Access (Joe Dogs)
4. Proceed South on Brant Street to Lakeshore Road. (Queens Head/Rude Native/Pepperwood)
5. Turn East on Lakeshore Road to Waterfront Hotel (Beaver and Bulldog)
6. Return to Old Lakeshore Road (Emmas)
The vehicle stopped for passengers at any point on the route but would not take passengers to any destinations off the route. This bar to bar service ended at 1AM. When the vehicle began to deliver patrons to any destination within the designated Service Area concluding service at 3AM.
 Older Ford club vans, which were technically not licensed as taxis, were used during the pilot with the full consent of the city. The multi-passenger service worked well enough for Burlington Taxi to ask for a second pilot with a view to making this a permanent service. After the first six weeks Wallace found there was little demand for the bar to bar service so he revised the offering to allow both vehicles to be available to transport anywhere in the City of Burlington including bar to bar downtown.
Wallace fully expected problematic behavior to be a major concern. He is “ happy to say that it has not been an issue at all. Our drivers have reported to us that for the most part the passengers have not caused any major issues.”
“The impact on Taxi Drivers Income was a major issue when we debated this type of service”, reports Wallace. “ We closely monitor driver income to ensure they can also make a decent living. When we compared driver revenue per hour from the same time last year there was no significant change. Additionally we had no complaints from our drivers about the vans being on the road.”
The total Revenue for the pilot was $3,425.00. The total Expenses for the pilot was $5,152. This only includes driver wages, fuel and insurance. It does not include vehicle depreciation or repairs and maintenance.
Wallace also reported that the pilot had limited impact on service levels. “They averaged around 80% which is considered good for this specific PEAK period. The use of the service was very limited with less than 5% of all calls using the service while having to be subsidized by Burlington Taxi.”
However the pilot did have some successes. “People were generally satisfied with the service and having another option of getting home at peak times. Additionally while the pilot operated during some peak months a good part of it ran during slower months skewing the ridership volumes. We had extreme high volumes of business during the Sound of Music festival and usage was very high, ” said Wallace
Wallace believes that “ if marketed properly and operated only during the peak months of November, December, May and June that this service could be successful.”
Wallace wanted pricing to be $5 per person anywhere in the City of Burlington.
Wallace likes what he learned enough to advise the city that he is in the process of finalizing a proposal to the city for peak period taxis to operate on Saturday nights throughout the year.
 By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON November 4, 2012 November sort of seems like a lead up to the coming holiday season. The time is busier; work makes more demands of us and our social lives get busier. Life around us is more active; there is so much more to do. That lazy summer weekend seems so long ago.
 It’s a small, independent bookstore that has been in business for more than forty years and continues to draw top level authors. Burlington is one of the few Canadians cities that consistently offers these events. We human being seems to go through these cycles and our friends over at the Different Drummer are adding to the mix of all the things we can do, want to do and would like to do.
Ian Elliott, proprietor at the bookstore on Locust Street has put together a November program you are going to want to take part in.
Globe and Mail writer Doug Saunders, will talk about his new title, The Myth of the Muslim Tide: Do Immigrants Threaten the West? at the Burlington Public Library on New Street Monday, November 19th at 7:00 pm – tickets $10.
Very few Canadians understand the change that is taking place in our society with the immigration influx. Will these new people change our core values; what will they bring to Canada that we don’t already have? It is time for more Canadians to begin to understand what these new Canadians offer – more than you may realize.
 A broadcasting career that ran for more than 40 years during which tens of million Canadians learned what had gone on during the day. Lloyd Robertson was the most popular news anchor of his time. On Monday, November 26th at 7:00 pm Lloyd Robertson, former news anchor with CTV News, and many may not know, a onetime lead broadcaster with CBC will be at Royal Botanical Gardens 680 Plains Road West Burlington, 7:00 pm to talk about his illustrious career as a news anchor and reflect upon his six decades as a journalist. The Kind of Life It’s Been is a personal look at a career we all watched take place. Robertson will offer wonderful insights and some laughs as well. Tickets to the event are $10. The event is being sponsored by A Different Drummer and Bryan Prince, Bookseller.
Clair Carver Dias will be at the Different Drummer Sunday, November 11th at 2:00 pm. An Olympic medal winner Dias will talk about her novel; a riveting chronicle of six athletes staking everything and battling personal and professional odds for the ultimate goal – a chance to compete at The Games. Ian Elliott tells us that Dias is an accomplished writer, a superlative speaker and wonderful company.
 Dr. Neil Turok will deliver the CBC Massey Lecture for 2012. He will be speaking at the McMaster University Club. Neil Turok, the person giving the Massey Lecture this year, at the McMaster University Club, 1280 Main Street West, in Hamilton on November 27th; 7:00 pm. Tickets are $10. The Massey subject this year is : The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos. Turok, Director of the Perimeter Institute, presents a vision of the future based on the workings of the human mind.
This is pretty heavily stuff but highly relevant – tickets will go quickly. The event is being put on by A Different Drummer in partnership with Bryan Prince Bookseller and House of Anansi Press.
All the speakers are informed, highly engaging and well worth the time. A Different Drummer Bookstore.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 30, 2012 The name doesn’t do much for me but the concept certainly resonates – giving young people an opportunity to test their entrepreneurial ideas and raise some of the money they need to get an idea off the ground. Then they have mentors to work with as they make their mistakes and learn that what they thought was a great idea, that was going to make them oodles of money, bumped into the cold hard reality of the market place.
While the idea is a bit of a copy – and a the pinching of an idea from CBC’s very popular Dragon’s Den TV show – the Rotarians have taken it quite a bit further.
 The Pythons’ Pit leadership Team: From the right Dr Melina Head, McMaster University, DeGroote School of Business; Rotarian Fareen Samji with fellow Rotarian Tom McLeod and Joe Pagano, a representative from the Royal Bank. Rotary works from the premise that ‘service is above self’. One of the arms of the organization is vocational service. Fareen Samji, a Rotarian, had in the past been asked to take part in mock Dragon’s Dens events at Alexander Public School where she was really impressed with the ideas the grade 8 students had. So impressed that it occurred to her that this was something Rotary could do.
Fareen is a dangerous woman with an idea. With the idea in her head it wasn’t long before her Rotary Club said – sure, we could do that. Now at Rotary if they go along with an idea you have – it is yours to achieve. So there she was with approval from her Rotary Club to do a Pythons’ Pit.
Why stop with just the one Rotary Club she asked – and thus a Rotary Road show took place where she managed to get all ten Halton Rotary Clubs to get behind the idea.
Fareen knew that while this was her project to get done on behalf of the Rotary community in Halton Region, she also knew she couldn’t do it by herself. Next step was the political level and she got a buy in from all four Mayors: Burlington, Oakville, Milton and Halton Hills.
Then the other service organizations had to be cued up – Fareen needed to ensure she wasn’t stepping on any toes. The Chamber of Commerce was onside.
 Dr Melina Head of McMaster University saw the Pythons’ Pit idea as a natural for the School of Business. Training people for business in a world that is much more competitive and global as well meant there had to be an academic component – so the people at McMaster University got a call. Fareen got lucky again when Milena Head, who runs the MBA program at the DeGroote School of Business, took to the idea instantly.
Fareen, who is the chair of the Pythons’ Pit project works with Tom McLeod who serves as vice chair. Fareen and Tom McLeod approached McMaster as a team and brought them into the idea.
All this is a long way of getting to the point where we can tell you in some detail how this is going to work. The most important thing we can tell you is that applications to be part of the program must be in no later than December 1, 2012. There is a lot of work to get done – so start now.
There are two categories; a High School students category and a General category which means anyone who isn’t a high school student.
There are cash prizes for the students.
There are no cash prizes for the General.
The entry fees for both categories have been waived.
The Pythons’ Pit web site has all the forms and the metrics on which entrants will be judged. Fareen Samji has no idea how many applications there will be – “we really won’t know until December 1st”, she said. “People will download the forms and begin putting together their applications – and that will take some time” she added.
Here are the links to the forms:
Student application form
General category application form
Next week we will tell you more about how this came together, how it will work and who the Pythons who will invest in the winning projects are and why they are doing this.
To come:
Part 2 The corporate participants and sponsors
Part 3 – The Pythons
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON October 10, 2012 The lot has been empty for a long time – it sits there next to the Wal-Mart store just south of the GO Station. At a recent council committee Ward 4 Councillor Jack Dennison suggested the Molinaro Group make one of the buildings an office tower – not a chance, the Molinaro boys know where the profit is.
 While there are just five 20 storey structures – take a look at all those three and four storey levels. It’s going to be condominiums with some rental in all five of the 20 storey towers that were approved for the site some time ago by the Ontario Municipal Board.
The previous owners sold the land to the Molinaro’s who are ready to meet with the community and talk about what they want to put up.
 Bunton’s Wharf – a Molinaro Group project, one of several that created a condo community in Burlington.  Spencer’s Landing – located on Maple and Lakeshore Road – a part of the community that has been good to and good for the Molinaro Group. They have a new project at Brock and Elgin that will see shovels in the ground this month. These guys know how to get a building up. Is there anything in Burlington they didn’t build? Look at the list: The Strata on Maple; 360 on Pearl, The Bunton’s Wharf, Spencer’s Landing and the Baxter; that is an impressive list. And they are about to break ground on the project over on Brock. For the most part the Molinaro Group gets their projects through the community process. The Brock project gave them some indigestion and they appear to have learned something from that exercise and are holding a public meeting at the Performing Arts Centre on October 25th at 7:00 pm.
Now if the Molinaro Group sets out a selection of some fine Italian wine or opts instead for an open bar – this project will just sail through.
But it is located within Ward 2 and that’s Meed Ward territory and she will have something to say about the street scape, the amenities and the impact the five structures are going to have on the local community and the wider community as well. A plaza is planned for the site.
 Sitting to the immediate south of the GO station with a chance that there will be a direct link into the GO station; this Molinaro Group project could become very popular, very quickly. Average unit size is said to be 700 sq. ft. Proposed as a 1000 + condo development the buildings will certainly help the city (if not put them over) the intensification the province is calling for, Many might be quite happy to see a forest of buildings go in as long as they aren’t just plain ugly to keep an infill being done in their neighbourhoods.
The range of units will run from affordable to luxury with the average size coming in at 700 square feet. That suggests this isn’t going to be a building aimed at families but rather singles that want to be mobile and able to get onto a GO train in minutes and be in Toronto.
 The people over at the Molinaro Group are quick to learn the language city hall needs to hear. During Council Workshops on development of the downtown core the phrase “mobility hub” came to the surface – a hub being a place where the various type of transportation come together. And in Burlington transportation is a combination of the GO trains and the highway. With this project the GO station is across the street and the highway is a couple of left turns away. This is a done deal!
By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON September 19, 2012 We knew the Zellers store was going to close – we told you that in May of this year.
Now the closing is very real – the signs came down today and the stores have had almost everything taken out of them.
 The Zellers sign comes off the store in the Burlington Mall. Store will get a total makeover and re-open as a Target store in April 2013 During the months ahead there will be a total gutting and then Target, the new store brand, will begin to put their equipment, sales counters, check out aisles and racks to display merchandize in place. Burlingtonians will flood into the new Target store sometime in April of 2013 – which will be a month or so before the pier opens to the public.
Two Zellers stores are closed; the one in Millcroft Centre and the one in the Burlington Mall.
 Not a sales clerk in sight. In April, 2013 the space will be filled with new merchandise in the kind of store Burlington hasn’t seen for some time. All the Zellers staff lost their jobs. Target didn’t buy the Zellers store – they assumed the lease, which means they now pay the rent and can do whatever they want to do with the space. That space is now empty and in the next five or six months the store – two in Burlington, will get new equipment and new staff will be hired and trained.
Target is a very different kind of retailer. They bring a different product line and they operate differently. Tough on the people who no longer have jobs. Some of them may get hired by Target but the betting in the retail community is that Target will not want people with Zellers training.
Zellers is no more – Target is now king. The Bay and Sears along with a number of other retailers in Burlington will see a bit of an uptick in their sales which they should enjoy while it lasts because the moment Target opens its doors – the customers they had will flee in droves to Target who will do everything they can to make them loyal customers.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON September 13, 2012 Two Spencer’s Restaurant Chef’s will duel it out at the Farmer’s Market on Friday. Chris Hayworth and Andrew McLeod will shop from the different vendors at the market and then cook up a meal, using what they bought at the market – all organic, that visitors to the market can sample at the tables Barry Imber, the driving force behind the idea of an organic market in downtown Burlington, plans to set out for people to use.
 It’s not a crowded market but it does have a consistent flow of traffic during the two hours it is open. Great produce, pork offerings are very good and each week someone else shows up with a new product. We got great sour-dough there last week.  Fresh bread – straight from the ovens – but you had to get there while the basket still had something in it. The Farmer’s Market, located off John Street just north of James back in behind Centro Gardens, focuses on local organically grown produce, meat and dairy.
It started up during the early summer and while traffic has not been overwhelming, it is consistent with people drifting in and out during the noon to 2:00 pm window they are open.
 Chef Chris Hayworth shows how he will use his knife at the Chef’s Duel scheduled for Friday just after noon at the Farmer’s All Organic market on John Street. Imber decided to give the location a bit of a promotional boost and challenged the two Spencer’s chef’s to duel it out over their stoves using just the produce available at the market.
 Candace Ivezich, sales agent with LeavoyRowe, purveyors of fine meats just might be Chef Hayworth’s secret weapon. Hayworth plans to play it by ear and see what is on sale- and then use his creative imagination to pull together a meal he is sure will win the day for him.
Hayworth is a full range chef but he tends to like to focus on the appetizer part of the menu – and where he can he goes local.
Could be fun – certainly will be tasty.
Chef Hayworth has a bit of an advantage – he has a supplier that wants him to win; that might tip the scales.
At press time we had not heard from Chef McLeod – maybe he has decided to concede and won’t show.
You be the judge – and see what they serve up.
 By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON August 27, 2012 It is interesting to listen to the views on Burlington`s decision to purchase cars that were not `made in Canada`. Some understand what a world economy is while others are afraid of it.
In the next two days, a distinguished speaker will be in Burlington to talk about his book The Boiling Frog Dilemma. Todd Hirsch, a senior economist with the Alberta Treasury Board asks: WHAT CREATES WEALTH?
The answer to that may be surprising. Economic wealth isn’t created by oil and gas molecules in the ground, nor by an auto assembly plant. It isn’t created by tax credits or subsidies. It isn’t even created by economic development programs. Wealth starts with one thing: an idea.
“The Boiling Frog Dilemma” argues that Canada in the 21st century is at risk of falling behind internationally. We need to seriously “up our game” in terms of creativity, innovation, risk taking, entrepreneurialism, cosmopolitanism, community, and re-thinking environmental stewardship—or risk becoming economically irrelevant on the global stage.
 Hirsch, who will be in Burlington for two days comments on the automotive industry with remarks that are useful for those engaged in the argument as to who the city should have bought new cars from. Hirsch says:
“Consider the automotive industry. It used to be possible to categorize car companies by country. Ford is a US car maker, Toyota is a Japanese car maker, Renault is a French car maker etc. But increasingly this makes no sense. Certainly the head office of the car maker remains fixed to one particular country. But in the 21st century a car could be designed in Japan with computer engineering systems from Switzerland, parts made in Brazil, Mexico and South Korea, an engine built by a German company, marketing campaigns plotted in Japan, the UK and California, environmental and safety testing by a Swedish company and the final assembly in Alabama. The car could then be sold by a retailer in Chicago and run on gasoline made from Alberta`s oil sands.”
Hirsch points out that we are all Global Traders and what we have to do is figure out where in the global chain of production we want to fit.
Many in Burlington seem to feel that the production chain begins and ends at the Ford factory in Oakville and that we have to take care of each other.
There is an opportunity for those people to widen their thinking. Thinkspot! a Burlington creative consulting company has brought Hirsch to the city to talk about his book during four different sessions at the ThinkSpot offices on Locust Street.
Todd Hirsch will be in Burlington next Monday and Tuesday (August 27th and 28th). Debra Pickfield, ThinkSpot head honcho, explains the event: “We are hosting a number of open-invitation events for people to come together at ThinkSpot! , talk with Todd, and hear why he thinks Canada and Canadians could begin tapping into something significant – our ability to create and innovate.”
 ThinkSpot’s Debra Pickfield – wild about Canada’s and Burlington’s economic complacency. “Some of you have heard me talk about Todd Hirsch and the recent book he co-authored “The Boiling Frog Dilemma.” After reading the book it was all I could do not to jump on a plane to Calgary and sit for a day talking with Todd and Robert – here was a book that explained perfectly why I get on my soapbox about creativity, problem-solving and innovation.”
There are a few spots left. Give ThinkSpot! a call and get the details or log into the reservation site. Given the close date – you might just want to take a chance and drop by the ThinkSpot offices.
BURLINGTON, ON August 3, 2012 When a company employee makes an obvious error, who should absorb the cost of that error – the company or the customer? This situation is all too common these days with the customer generally footing the bill for a company’s mistake. Whatever has happened to ‘customer service’?
On July 25th, at 3pm, I went into a ‘full service’ gas station in Burlington Ontario to get gas. The attendant, who I have dealt with over a number of years, said ‘how much?’ As per usual, I said “$20, and can you check all the fluids? Thanks.’. He nodded. I then opened the gas cap lock. He put the nozzle into the tank and walked up to the front of the car. I unlocked the hood from inside the car. He lifted it up and checked the oil, the power steering and the window washing liquid. He came around the corner of the car and said, ‘You need power steering and window washing fluid’. He then quickly switched off the gas. It had reached $61 dollars.
I got out of the car and went to the trunk. I retrieved my left-over stock of steering fluid and washer fluid and handed them to him. He said, ‘You owe $61 for the gas.” I looked at him, and said, ‘No I don’t. I owe $20 for the gas that I ordered.” He stood holding the two bottles, unsure. The nozzle was still in my car.
I took the two bottles from him, went under the hood and added the fluids myself. I then went into the manager’s office. A young man, the ‘new’ manager, was on the phone, so I waited. He put his hand over the receiver and gave me the ‘what’s up’ look. I said, ‘I ordered $20 worth of gas, but the attendant, in error, filled it up to $61.” He gave the ‘one minute’ finger and went back to his call. I waited.
 Twenty dollars was all our columnist Margaret Lindsay Holman was prepared to pay for the $20 worth of gas she ordered.
What would you have done? As I had left my wallet on my car seat, I returned to the car to get it, and said, on route, to the attendant who was soon filling up another car, “I am prepared to pay $40 on a $20 order, but as it was your error, you have to absorb the difference.” He didn’t say anything, knowing full well he was in the wrong.
The young owner/manager came out a couple of minutes later and said to me, ‘You now have the gas in your car, so you have to pay for it.” I repeated, I only ordered $20 worth of gas, not $61 worth of gas. He said, ‘In principal, you have the gas, and you’ve got to pay for it.” I answered, “In principal, the customer ordered $20 worth of gas, not $61 worth of gas”. He said NO, ‘Pay Up’. I said NO. I’ll pay $40 only. He said NO, ‘Pay Up’/ I then said, NO, I did not order this gas, so siphon the extra out’. He said ‘Alright, move your car over to the garage’. This terse dialogue happened in a matter of nano-seconds.
I moved the car and waited to see what would happen next. The owner/manager disappeared into the garage bays.
An older guy came out and tried to argue that ‘everyone’ makes mistakes, and that a reasonable person would understand that and just pay the difference. I said I fully understand the mistake, and that I was willing to pay $40 on a $20 order, but that the attendant had to understand his mistake too.
This guy also said NO. He then took the car into a car bay. I waited. Five minutes later he took the car out and parked it. He said this was going to take more time then he thought to calibrate the exact $41 extra of gas and that this whole business was going to cost them money. I said, yes, this wasted time was also costing me money. I stood by the car. Waiting. He went back into the garage.
Another five minutes passed. He came back out and said, would you settle on $50 for the gas? I thought about it. We’d been at this for nearly a half hour, and it was clearly going to take that long again, so I said ok. I gave him $50 cash and left the lot with $61 worth of gas on a $20 dollar gas order.
And yes, this is very much about the principal of the thing. Customer Service should mean something. I have been a frequent and, until now, very satisfied user of this garage. All has been fine to date with no complaints, and yet, with this error, I am supposed to absorb their mistake? I don’t think so. The likelihood that I will use this garage is very slim. I have no hard feelings toward the attendant himself, it was an honest mistake, and he knew he had made it. Where it went wrong is that his boss, the owner/manager, should have covered his error, instead of ‘forcing the issue’ back onto a regular paying customer.
Here’s the added conundrum. What if I only had a $20 bill in my wallet? What then?
Should I be expected to go to the bank? Should I waste MY time to cover THEIR error?
I don’t think so.
Thoughts welcome.
Margaret Lindsay Holton is both an environmentalist and an acerbic social activist. She is an artist of some renown and the designer of a typeface. She is also a photographer and the holder of opinions she will share with you in an instant. Welcome her as an Our Burlington columnist who will appear once every two weeks.
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