Beach eatery leaving after years of lease controversy
Carters Landing opened in 2016 but has had court fights with city leaseholder Tuggs Inc.
Carters Landing, the eatery on a prime beachside spot at city-owned Ashbridge’s Bay, is shutting down after almost two years of controversy and legal fights with leaseholder Tuggs Inc.
“We will be leaving that location on May 24th,” Maureen Hart, a senior communications director for restaurant giant Cara Operations Ltd., operator of Carters Landing, told the Star.
“We’re sorry we cannot continue to be part of the community and want to thank our beach community and neighbours for their support over the past two years. All of our staff will have jobs at other Landings locations if they’re interested,” she wrote, refusing to discuss “confidential” details of business dealings with Tuggs owner George Foulidis that, court records show, soured.
The closure is the latest twist in Tuggs’ city lease for the site and rights to sell food, alcohol and novelties in the area that have generated headlines and frustrated some Beach residents.
Carters Landing opened July 1, 2016, alongside a new Foulidis-franchised Tim Hortons and in the place of Foulidis’s seafood restaurant Paralia, which followed the original Boardwalk Cafe.
The opening angered some because Tuggs had not received permission to reassign its building lease to Cara, and councillors approved the original sole-sourced lease with Tuggs as a way to keep the busy boardwalk spot in the hands of “mom and pop” operators, not big food chains.
Council later approved the reassignment. Cara was to sublease back to Tuggs the part of the building that holds Foulidis’s Tim Hortons and adjoining Athens Café. But the lease reassignment was not signed amid lawsuits and countersuits including Tuggs’ demand Carters Landing vacate the building.
Points of contention included free parking for Carters Landing patrons and control of alcohol sales in the surrounding area. Cara argued eviction would cost it $825,000 invested in the building which now has a big wraparound patio facing Lake Ontario. Neither Foulidis nor his lawyer on the case, Gary Caplan, could be reached Monday for comment on Carters Landing leaving or the state of the legal fight.
Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon, who represents the Beach and has for years expressed frustration with Tuggs, said Monday the company “needs to operate a restaurant as per their lease and they bloody well better.”
McMahon, who is not running for re-election in the October election, said she’d like to see Tuggs commit to running “a great restaurant on our beautiful Beach instead of focusing on fighting with the city over ridiculous minutiae,” of its lease.