Relations with eatery rocky

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This article was published 30/12/2011 (5057 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A PROPERTY company has fired back in the fight over hundreds of boulders that have been placed outside a Westwood eatery.

The stones raised eyebrows after they showed up on the east side of D-Jay’s Restaurant at 3354 Portage Ave. Patrons who’ve frequented the restaurant for years said the pile of rocks is making it difficult for people to park and get into the business.

Robert Johnson, the restaurant’s manager and co-owner, said the influx of rocks by Superior Management came after he turned down the company’s offer to buy his business about five years ago.

But James Matthews, the president of the property company, said the boulders are the culmination of years of futile discussions about parking in and around Westwood Village Shopping Centre.

“I’m chagrined to read that the boulders seem to have aggravated some of our neighbours,” Matthews writes in a letter to the Free Press.

“If you visit Westwood Village, you’ll see that we have used boulders throughout the whole of the shopping centre to define laneways, parking areas and property lines.

“At the western end in particular, we wanted to secure the required number of parking stalls for our own tenants, for sure, but we also wanted to create a clearer sense of the parking layout and the line between our two properties.

“In fact, these nefarious boulders do not block the established laneways or reduce the existing number of parking stalls. It’s regrettable if (restaurant founder and co-owner Dennis Johnson) hasn’t explained the parking arrangements to his patrons, but he knows what they are and we’ve given him plenty of advance notice of our positions and intentions.”

Superior Management owns all the property on the lot except for the restaurant and a Bank of Montreal branch. Superior’s letter said the decision to place the boulders came after years of discussions between the company and D-Jay’s fell through.

The letter said the company allowed restaurant patrons to park on its land for free from 2005 to 2008 before a month-to-month parking licence was set up between Superior and D-Jay’s.

“It has been suggested that we have been scheming to buy the Johnsons’ land. That is simply not so,” Matthews writes in the letter.

“Early on in our dealings, Dennis offered to sell us his land on a leaseback agreement. We asked him to name his price and when he did, offered to pay it.

“Dennis didn’t like our lease terms and, by early 2010, had doubled his price.

‘Even then we continued to discuss the possibility of a deal, despite advice from our commercial real estate brokers that the Johnsons’ expectations were out of proportion with the marketplace. At this stage, buying the Johnsons’ land is simply not in the cards for us, at any price.” Robert Johnson, who reviewed the letter by Superior, said Thursday night the boulders next to his restaurant are “overkill” and “unnecessary.”

“It’s a business deal that didn’t work out in neither of our favour,” said Johnson, adding the deal “fell apart.”

He said he’s concerned the boulders could impede emergency vehicles.

The boulders have touched off anger among people such as Matt Hillhouse who support the restaurant.

“They’re slippery and just dangerous,” said Hillhouse, 21, who showed up with about 20 friends and off-roading enthusiasts Thursday night at the restaurant.

They parked about 10 trucks on the rocks to “prove a point,” Hillhouse said.

“When we heard this was going on, we figured it’d be a great time to come out and actually prove that these rocks couldn’t drive away business, they actually brought in business,” he said.

 gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca