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CONDO WARS TheStar.com - News - College St. highlights a city-wide conflict College St. highlights a city-wide conflict TORY ZIMMERMAN/TORONTO STAR When new residents move into bar areas, there's bound to be tension in the air Jul 29, 2007 04:30 AM Murray Whyte staff reporter Edney Hendrickson has close-cropped black hair, twin pierced ears, a boyish appearance, and a serious case of hot-under-the-collar. "It's a witchhunt, pure and simple," he seethes. It's Thursday night at Octopus Lounge, a low-key hotspot off College St. W. that Hendrickson owns with partner Kirk Adore. (Here, in the ahead-of-the-curve world of College St., Wednesday is the new Friday, and Thursday has been Saturday for years.) And by Hendrickson's reckoning, things are not as they should be. Three and a half years ago, when Octopus opened, it was a welcome addition to the area's bars and restaurants – a compact boîte where the later hours would often see the entire place on its feet, dancing. Now? A different story. "I had a municipal enforcement officer drop by one night," Hendrickson says. "He basically laid it on the line: `We don't want you here. The residents don't want you here. And if we can find a way to get you out of here, we will.' It was so unprofessional, I was shocked." Hendrickson isn't the only one who feels confused. A spate of liquor licence suspensions in the past year along the busy entertainment strip – more than a dozen, all told – and the constant attentions of either inspectors from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario or the city's noise bylaw officers have left bar and restaurant owners feeling unwelcome in their own neighbourhood. And it has become their neighbourhood as much as anyone else's. Since the '50s, when the stretch of College St. bound by Bathurst St. and Ossington Ave. was colonized by recently arrived Italian immigrants, Little Italy has changed drastically, from working class ethnic enclave to, by the early '90s, an eclectic mix of bars and eateries. Ever-increasing property pressures have prompted what some have taken to calling a showdown between the area's most recently arrived residents, many of them in new condominiums right on the busy strip, and the bar and restaurant owners that were left to proliferate before their arrival. It leaves the neighbourhood in the awkward position of potentially uprooting the very character – vibrant, non-stop social activity – that drew people here in the first place. "It really seemed like last year, they came out in full force," says Allan Thomson, who owns Sotto Voce, a stylish restaurant at Queen and Clinton Sts. Last summer, Thomson received a letter from Toronto Police Service's 14 Division, which sometimes works in concert with the AGCO and has enforcement authority. Thomson calls it a "friendly warning." "It said they were going to crack down on College St., so behave yourself," Thomson recalls. "I thought, `That's fine; we're not doing anything wrong.'" And then, Thomson got charged with overcrowding. The AGCO suspended his licence for 10 days, forcing him to close down in March. "We were maybe a few people over," Thomson shrugs. "In the past, the inspectors would come in and say, `You've got too many people on your patio,' and I'd fix it right away. No harm done. Now, they write you up on the spot. It's frustrating. We're trying to create something here that promotes the city, and this is how we're treated." It's part of what lawyer David Winer, who represents clients dealing with liquor-licence issues, calls a rash of "very overzealous enforcement of the (liquor control) act by inspectors without any discretion. And," he continues, "they do have discretion." Discretion, for example, to warn Thomson and not charge him outright. But it seems the days of discretion have passed, and no one can quite understand why. (When asked for comment, the on-duty officer at 14 Division said "there was no order to crack down on College Street.") Some speculate that the recent horror show in the so-called Entertainment District, a cluster of nightclubs near Richmond and Peter Sts., with its fights, shootings and almost nightly disruptions, has made city and provincial officials wary of another hyper-social zone spiralling out of control. "They nailed the club district hard," says the owner of a recently suspended College St. club who asked not to be named. "They can't just nail the club district." Others point to the ongoing surge of property values here, as well as the expansion of residences from adjacent streets and onto College itself, with new condos either built or being planned on some of the street's hot zones. Astra Burka, the chair of the Palmerston Area Residents Association, said the problem wasn't the influx of restaurants, but the changing character of College St. restaurants and cafés themselves. "We used to have a lot of restaurants. Now a lot of them are becoming lounges." Particularly vexing, she says, is the elastic definition of a liquor licence is slack. "Everyone hands in applications – `Oh, we're just doing a restaurant.' And then it's lounge, lounge, lounge. There's something wrong with that picture." Whatever the case, all establishments, from late-night bars to family-oriented bistros, are feeling the pinch. Winer, who represents Hendrickson and Wayne Parent, who owns Teatro, the restaurant next door to Octopus, cites another College St. establishment that he declines to name – "a nice, family restaurant" – where an employee took down the framed liquor licence to dust the shelves behind it. An inspector was watching, waiting. As soon as the licence was no longer visibly displayed, he served the restaurant with a violation. The stories on College are numerous, and growing. Another family-oriented café was written up for its patio being over capacity. ("Maybe if you counted the three baby strollers, we were over capacity," scoffs the owner, who asked not to be named.) China Doll, an of-the-moment eatery and lounge, was hassled by AGCO inspectors to take down an Absolut Vodka sign, when a billboard across the street advertised Budweiser. (China Doll was later suspended for overcrowding.) Ab Campion, the AGCO's spokesperson, says mercy isn't part of an inspector's job. "We expect licencees to run their businesses within the parameters of their licence, end of story." At Teatro, those parameters have increasingly had little leeway. The establishment has been suspended twice in the past year, resulting in two separate three-week closures. Parent deals with 14 Division often, which he calls "lovely. `Keep an eye on it, keep it down' – that's their attitude. The AGCO inspectors? Relentless and unpleasant." Many bar and restaurant owners are now walking on eggshells. At Octopus, Hendrickson regularly engages a sound engineer to check the decibel level on the sidewalk outside, to make sure it's well below prescribed limits. In September, Octopus will be forced to close for 10 days, for overcrowding. "We were maybe three people over," Hendrickson shrugs. A sign on the wall reads capacity: 92. "That's the process. I get it. But we run a tight ship. There has never been one incident here – ever." Speaking of process, Hendrickson produces a thick package, dropped off by a municipal licensing officer, which he slaps on the table in front of him. It outlines the process Octopus will have to undertake in two years, when it looks to renew its business licence. The package suggests it will need a nightclub permit to operate. "They want us to have metal detectors, security guards," he laughs bitterly. But it's a moot point. The application would require the approval of local residents, who would surely vote it down – thus killing Octopus where it sits. Hendrickson looks across the street, at a bank of new condominiums that opened in the past year. "We were here three years before they even broke ground," Hendrickson says. "Isn't this part of the reason you came here in the first place? You're moving to College St. – what do you expect?"