Osborne Village landlord admits gaffe

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This article was published 23/12/2011 (5060 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The owner of the buildings housing Movie Village and Vi-Ann Vietnamese restaurant in Osborne Village admitted Thursday he “screwed up” in selling his property for the proposed expansion of the adjacent Shoppers Drug Mart.

Martin Ringer said he didn’t tell the Vi-Ann owner or the employees of Movie Village about the proposal, which would see the Shoppers double in size and take out the two local businesses. Vi-Ann found out through the restaurant’s customers, and Movie Village employees discovered the deal on Facebook.

“I was trying to keep it quiet, and that was the unfortunate thing,” Ringer said in an interview. “Nothing was intentionally done to hurt anyone.”

The proposal is to go before a civic appeal committee comprising still-unidentified city councillors before the end of February.

Ringer, who has owned land in the neighbourhood since 1952, said he wants to sell the site, and Shoppers seemed to be his best option.

“I’m an old man and it just seemed like a good time to sell. (Shoppers) were the right people, and they needed that land. That’s all.”

Ringer said he hasn’t yet reached out to the Vi-Ann restaurant, but would like to help it relocate. He also hasn’t talked about the property deal with his son, David, who manages Movie Village from his business office in Kelowna, B.C. There is talk of relocating the iconic movie store. David Ringer could not be reached for comment.

In the last 12 days, more than 2,100 people have signed a petition against the Shoppers project and more than 100 showed up at a board of adjustment hearing in city hall Wednesday night to implore the board to overturn the proposal, arguing it sets a dangerous development precedent and goes against the Osborne Village Neighbourhood Plan. Three Facebook groups have been created to fight the proposed redevelopment.

Jackie Gudz, who founded the largest of the three Facebook groups, said the core of individuals running the online resistance movement are looking for a lawyer to further their cause. The group has started fundraising to ensure Vi-Ann, which has been in Osborne Village since 2001, can relocate.

The board of adjustment, comprising citizen appointees, unanimously approved the Shoppers plan Wednesday night.

“The (building) is conditionally sold to Shoppers,” Ringer’s lawyer told the hearing. “From a legal point of view, not from an emotional one, the lease expires, there’s no renewal and the landlord can do whatever he wants with this property.”

He implored the board not to give in to “the emotional side of things.”

Shoppers planning consultant Paul McNeil maintained Shoppers “has been an important part (of the Village) for the past 18 years, has established relationships and is part of the diversity of the Village.”

“We’re a good corporate citizen,” McNeil said. “It completes the community in terms of the type of the diversity it provides.”

Only those who registered at Wednesday’s meeting can appeal and must submit a letter by Jan. 11 to the city clerk.

Critics argued Vi-Ann is the only Vietnamese restaurant in the neighbourhood. Shoppers, they said, duplicates many of the services already available in the Safeway located next door, adding that among the 29 Shoppers outlets in Winnipeg, five are within an eight-kilometre radius.

“I don’t think the plan fits the Village, it’s not in line with the development we have there, it’s not to scale, and it reduces the number of unique independent businesses in the area,” area resident Shannon VanRaes said. “(But) it doesn’t surprise me that the city approved it,” she said, calling city hall “development-friendly” and “shortsighted.”

laura.beeston@freepress.mb.ca