Garden biz on hook for illegal composting

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This article was published 23/04/2022 (1337 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A garden supply business has been ordered to pay $55,000 in fines and court costs after it flouted a court order to stop composting activities on its property.

The ruling is the latest legal fallout in a long-standing — and sometimes violent — dispute between Samborski Garden Supplies Ltd. and the Rural Municipality of Macdonald.

In January 2020, Samborski Garden Supplies Ltd. (Samborski Environmental) and director Leonard Samborski were found guilty of contempt for ignoring a 2016 interim injunction that prohibited them from continuing composting operations on property south of the Perimeter Highway, west of Winnipeg’s Brady Road landfill.

“Despite efforts by the RM on several fronts, the injunction did not cause Samborski Environmental to stop dumping material on the property,” Queen’s Bench Justice Colleen Suche wrote in a recently released ruling. “It simply carried on as it had been doing.”

When the RM sought the 2016 injunction, it argued Samborski Environmental had no right to run its composting operation on the property, as it was zoned for agricultural use only. The Samborski family claimed a 1990 zoning licence, which the province has called defunct, permitted the activity.

The RM, taking the position the company continued composting on the property in defiance of the injunction, seized an office trailer and equipment from the property in February 2018, essentially shutting down the company.

A month later, police arrested Leonard Samborski after a front-end loader allegedly rammed the vehicles of two bylaw officers tasked with seizing it. Headingley RCMP gave chase and pulled over Samborski at Pembina Highway and Bishop Grandin.

In January 2020, Samborski pleaded guilty to dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and failing to stop at the scene of an accident and was fined $3,000.

“The injunction and finding of contempt is but one chapter in a long saga involving Samborski Environmental, the City of Winnipeg, the RM and the province — and the courts as a consequence — none of which has gone Samborski Environmental’s way,” Suche said.

The RM had sought fines of $200,000 and $30,000 against Samborski Environmental and Leonard Samborski, respectively, and $3.8 million to remediate the property.

Suche fined Samborski Environmental and Leonard Samborski a total of $15,000, noting Samborski Environmental has only three employees and no longer includes composting as part of its business.

“It also lost a valuable asset — the front-end loader that was seized was sold at public auction,” Suche said. “The proceeds of approximately $200,000 were turned over to the RM, presumably as part of its enforcement rights.”

Suche ordered Samborski Environmental to pay $40,000 of the RM’s court costs. Suche did not order Samborski to pay any money for remediating the property, ruling the RM “has other options available to it to recover such expenses.”

RM of Macdonald Reeve Brad Erb did not comment on Suche’s ruling Friday, saying he had not yet had a chance to thoroughly review it.

Leonard Samborski said the 14-year dispute with the RM has left a fourth generation, 100-year-old family business in ruin and “a shell of what it used to be.”

Samborski argued the 1990 licence was granted “in perpetuity” and never properly put before the court.

“This whole thing has been an injustice to us as a family,” he said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca