Carbone clears out of Taylor Avenue location

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/05/2020 (2148 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As social distancing guidelines gradually become less restrictive, more restaurants are discovering that the pathway to re-opening may be just too costly.

Last week, Carbone Coal Fired Pizza, removed its equipment and walked away from the last year on its lease at its Taylor Avenue location.

While Benjamin Nasberg, the president of Carbone, and Ron Penner the senior vice-president and chief operating officer of Globe Property Management, the property’s landlords, had different takes on the scenario, the closure of that location can be chalked up as another of the growing list of COVID-19 business casualties.

The River Heights location was the first of the Winnipeg chain, which has five other locations in Winnipeg and Brandon and three more franchise-owned locations under construction.

After temporarily closing most locations in March, Nasberg said there is still so much uncertainty about how the market will play out over the next few months.

That led to a dispute between landlord and tenant with both believing the other side was being unreasonable.

Nasberg said Globe made offers to defer rent for a few months, but required that it be repaid in six months.

“We were going back and forth. We were looking at how it (the market) will play out,” Nasberg said. “We would be willing to re-open if there was a reasonable offer but we couldn’t come to an agreement. They sent us a demand letter (to pay May rent in full) so we moved our equipment out and cut ties with that location last week.”

Nasberg said he has had more cooperation from landlords at other locations and he is still in the middle of negotiations with others.

“We were in a position to re-open if there was reasonable terms form the landlord but they (Globe) have not been cooperating with us,” he said.

From Penner’s perspective, he said, without speaking specifically about the Carbone situation, Globe tries to be reasonable but requires that there be adequate two-way negotiations.

“It is it is our belief that we have been partnering with people but you can’t partner with people if they see a partnership as being only one-sided,” he said

He said Globe has worked hard with both its residential and commercial tenants to figure out ways through the coronavirus shutdown.

“I’m proud to say that for the most part it has gone extremely well,” Penner said. “We have offered a variety of programs to our commercial tenants to help them through. Some chose not to deal with us and have not made an effort. It is disappointing.”l

The fact that no one knows exactly when social distancing restrictions will be lifted obviously throws a huge blanket of uncertainty over any business that requires people to be together in relatively close proximity to each other.

Nasberg said that they had been in the Taylor Avenue location for close to 10 years and employed 25 people there, but said he could not justify continuing to lay out cash for such a property when he did not know when it would have the ability to generate revenue.

“We wanted to be able to wait and see what sort of government programs might be available to help,” he said.

There is plenty of concern about the damage this sort of scenario will have if it is repeated too often. But it gets more apparent as time passes that the casualty list will keep growing.

“We are not in the business of putting people out of business,” said Penner. “We are in the business of keeping our buildings full. We have bills to pay as well. This is not what we would like to see.”

Government payroll and rent relief programs are going to be helpful for many businesses, but they will not save them all.

Penner said, “It is remarkable how resilient people are and how creative people can be. Some of our tenants are doing things you would never imagine them doing so that they can maintain their business.”

One property manager said that the bottom line is that tenants signed a contract.

And tenant advocates say if landlords are going to be heavy handed there will be many businesses that won’t make it.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca