Cadence Macmichael, owner of Pretty Things Boutique (5240 Blowers Street, 492-8329), emailed recently to relate her frustrations with some construction on the street in front of her store. Her story is compelling, and echoes complaints I’ve been hearing from other downtown business owners.
Macmichael took a cab to work one Tuesday morning, only to find the street being worked on, as a contractor to Heritage Gas was putting a gas line into another business on the street. She claims that a construction worker gave both her and the cab driver a “hard time,” even though they weren’t disrupting the site of construction.
“I was given no [prior] notice that [the construction] would require shutting down both street and foot traffic and access to my business,” writes Macmichael. “A sign was put up at the corner of Blowers and Grafton Streets as well as a construction worker to redirect foot traffic away from the side walk leading to my business. The workers were extremely rude to people walking and driving in the area, even going so far as to tell employees that they weren’t allowed to be on the sidewalk that went into their work places, despite no actual construction being done on that specific part of the road and/or sidewalk at that specific time.
“After hearing that foot traffic was being blocked on my sidewalk, I went to investigate to find out how long this was happening and why because clearly it was going to affect my business,” continues Macmichael. “After watching her turn away people (several of whom were clearly tourists) I asked the construction worker, ‘Are you shutting off the foot traffic to my street? You can’t do that. This affects my business if there is no foot traffic.” This woman had a terrible attitude and rather than giving me information on how or why this was happening or appologizing for the inconvienience, she snapped at me ‘I’m not stopping people from going to your store they can go to your store if they want to go to your store.’ I had told her I had just witnessed her stopping people from coming down my street to my business; her response was to tell me that only people who needed to be on the street were allowed down because they were dealing with natural gas pipe lines and that it was an issue of safety. “
As she tells it, this exchange perplexed Macmichael. “Frustrated and confused about the situation, I asked if I could speak to their supervisor for further information, which she told me she told me there was no one on site. This set off alarm bells for me because considering that they were doing things in the name of ‘safety’ and that they were dealing with natural gas one would think there would be a supervisor on site.”
I completely understand Macmichael’s anger, but for the sake of argument, let’s say she was directing it at construction workers, not managers or PR people. If that’s where Macmichael left it, I might be tempted to shrug it off, but Macmichael took the extra step of trying to contact someone with some authority.
“I contacted [councillor] Dawn Sloane and asked her who I needed to talk to about this situation and she forwarded me to David Hubley [a manager in the city’s transportation division] but when I called I got no answer from his office. I called a friend who was formerly involved in Halifax politics and she told me to call [city CAO] Richard Butts’ office which I did and after a bit of run around I was able to get a hold of Debbie Andrews from with Halifax Designs and Construction, who was at least able to tell me that it wasn’t the city doing the work but Heritage Gas and to give them a call. I called Heritage Gas twice and was told that a supervisor would be coming down to the site to talk to me and tell me what was going on.”
At this point a neighbouring business owner demanded to see the permit allowing the work to be done, and, according to Macmichael, the permit was for the opposite side of the street, not the for the sidewalk that was being closed.
By then, “I had called everyone I could think of to call for information,” writes Macmichael. “Then I heard rumor that the reason that they may have been there was because of a gas leak and that was the safety issue. Even more concerned now, you could say I was at a point of rage. If this was a safety issue then why not notices, why was no one from Heritage Gas calling me back? I had heard that someone from the office upstairs from mine had been given a hard time about coming down to light a cigarette because there was a potential for it to be dangerous with the gas. But how was any one supposed to know? There were no notices, there were no signs stating that there was potential for hazardous gas in our area, and there was no one from Heritage Gas giving us any answers. And STILL no supervisor on site telling us any information. So here’s where I called the police…Whether or not a police officer came down to investigate I’ll never know because no one came to talk to me.”
At the end of her business day, having suffered a loss of sales, Macmichael says she was contacted by Pernell Walton from Heritage Gas, who “seemed apologetic,” but there has been no follow-up, and no explanations for the lack of communication.
As Macmichael points out, this is a recurring theme downtown. We heard Argyle businesses make similar complaints during the impromptu parking ban one Friday evening, for example.
This isn’t rocket science. Downtown businesses are an essential part of the downtown core; they shouldn’t get to unilaterally call all the shots, but it’s beyond reasonable that they be consulted and warned of all construction and street disruptions, and that those disruptions be worked around their business operations, as best as possible.
There evidently isn’t a communications requirement in place for construction permits issued in the downtown area, or if there is, it doesn’t work.
I would argue, rude construction workers aside, the fault here lies with the city, which either doesn’t take such complaints seriously, or doesn’t give a damn.
It needs to be addressed, pronto.
This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2011.
I work at Pretty Things, and while I wasn’t working that day, I DID happen to be downtown and witnessed a lot of this crap going on. It’s completely unfair for local businesses to be treated like this. They were blocking the Paperchase’s door, they were kicking people off the street, being rude, and as noted-the permit wasn’t even for our side of the street. Not a single person walked down past the store the 2 hours I was in there. I only got by because I pushed my way through. The city has to do something to protect their small businesses from this kind of crap. Small business is the heart of this city, and the council doesn’t seem to care.
If there was a leak or Heritage gas did things beyond the scope of their permit, they could be compelled to pay compensation for loss of sales. This would also open some eyes and hopefully prevent this occurring in the future. You should call Gordon Allen whom did the poster bylaw case against the city.
If they were putting in pipes then there is no gas flowing yet. That’s a bogus excuse.
Just another Occupy crowd, but with a permit. Make sure they don’t freeload and hook up to your power supply.
I experienced something similar although it didn’t hit my pocketbook! I came home on a Friday this summer and found the sidewalk in front of my home had been marked with spray paint. Figured someone was planning to do some construction work, but there was nothing in my mailbox telling me what was up. I have gardened the median in front of my house (looks pretty and I don’t have to mow it) so I was concerned that my plants might be facing the bulldozer. I understand the median isn’t actually my space (although I’m responsible for maintaining it) and work needs to be done from time to time. I figured I would simply move my plants to a bed in the back of my yard while work was underway and then put them back again when things were done.
First thing on Monday, I called around to the Water Commission, Heritage Gas and HRM to try and find out what was planned. Only Heritage Gas got back to my right away to say it wasn’t their people. I came home that Monday to find the sidewalk was already gone and some of my plants had been uprooted and stomped into oblivion. I found out on Tuesday that it was contractors hired by HRM for sidewalk repairs. It was really annoying because the destruction was so needless. Someone was right in front of my house to mark the sidewalk, why couldn’t they have dropped a flier in my mailbox letting me know that work would be proceeding, weather dependent, next week? Why is that not standard practice? Had I had notice, I would have happily moved my plants, the contractors could have completed their work and we all would have been happy.
I called my councilor, Gloria McCluskey, because this is clearly a weakness in HRM’s process. Gloria made inquiries on my behalf and the message that came back from HRM was I shouldn’t have gardened the median in the first place. So much for encouraging people to beautify their community. HRM should have a policy of notification when work is planned for street right of ways and should require 3rd parties like developers and Heritage Gas to do the same as a condition of their work permits.
Duh, “Macmichael took a cab to work one Tuesday morning, only to find the street being worked on, as a contractor to Heritage Gas was putting a gas line into another business on the street”………..why call Sloane, Hubley, Butts, et al when clearly it was ……. ummmm, Heritage Gas! ~ Waste of her time as well as others trying to find the elusive supervisor when the first call should have been to Heritage Gas.
To the person who asked why i didnt call heritage gas first was because their trucks werent on site and i wasnt able to get any answers from the people on site to tell me who the work was through. The work was done through sackville trenches a subcontractor of heritage gas. Since i couldnt get a straight answer from the people outside my front door that is why i began to call around to find out. There is some confusion in the way the article is written which doesnt reflect that i did not know at first who was doing the work.