No money to be made off chairs

Re: “Vieille Europe co-owner won’t take the Great Chair Affair sitting down” (Josh Freed, Aug. 19)

It’s obvious why these vendors have come under the inspectors’ magnifying glass: their plastic chairs and hanging boxes weren’t part of Mayor Coderre’s Montreal Spends anniversary celebrations.

There were no environmental or economic studies done, there were no closings of streets or limitations of access for weeks on end, they required no construction, no orange cones, no street repaving, no altering of bus routes.

To add insult to injury, there were no barricades of any kind involved. Oh, the shame.

The rules are simple: if any improvements or enhancements are going to be done in Coderre’s Montreal, it appears they’ll be done on his terms, with his approval and involve an expenditure of at least a couple of million dollars of taxpayers’ money. They also will require the maximum inconvenience to pedestrians and/or drivers and/or cyclists and/or business owners and/or citizens and/or tourists.

Actually, there is a simple solution to the chairs-onthe-sidewalk issue: move the granite tree stumps from the mountain to the front of the stores on St-Laurent Blvd. that want them. The way Coderre spends our money, that will cost at least a few million dollars and, as an added benefit, will involve construction, barricades, street closures and inconvenience.

Voilà — a homegrown solution to a homegrown problem.

Bob Vanier, Montreal