ByWard Market: Watson For Nightlife Commish

“My biggest problem is that the city hasn’t spent a penny on the (ByWard) Market, as far as I’m concerned. They’ve been spending on Lansdowne. I think the city has forgotten that this is all local businesses and they’re losing them all one by one.”

Owner Russell Garland who is closing Dunn’s Famous Deli

When will the City of Ottawa wake up?

Restaurant after restaurant after business after business are closing in the ByWard Market because the crime and related social problems continue to mount.

Let the authorities say what they will … a new Ottawa Police Service office in the Rideau Centre … but the proof is on the streets. Just look how the market has changed from its heyday just a few short years ago. And the business casualties are mounting: The Oz Kafe, the Courtyard Restaurant, Mamma Grazzi’s Kitchen, Saslove’s Meat Market and the Blue Cactus Bar and Grill …

So where is the city pouring its money into? Despite a massive hole in its budget this year, somehow it is finding a half billion dollars for the money-losing and never-to-make-money Lansdowne. There is a price to be paid for spending good money after bad at Lansdowne. The price is the ByWard Market.

Obviously the current lobbyists for the market are meeting little success. A business goes under, a few words in the media and that’s it. The business goes away. The noise disappears but the problems don’t.

Furthermore, who really cares about Lansdowne? It’s located in the periodic traffic gridlock of the Glebe which in its grasp paralyzes the city’s transit system. Why get involved in that and once you reach your goal, you’ve got to find a rare open parking spot. This is a weather-challenged city with a rapidly aging population. Who wants to walk blocks from your car to a place where no one is, save for the occasional football or junior hockey game?

You could bicycle perhaps. Then get a free trip to the civic emergency department. While you’re there, your bike gets stolen.

And just how much entertainment and dining can this city support? Elgin Street, the Parkdale Market, Westboro, Hintonburgh, New Edinburgh, new National Capital Commission “animation” along the Ottawa River and the Rideau Canal, a possible new play area around a LeBreton arena … why go to inaccessible Lansdowne when you can walk to an eatery in your neighbourhood? How much nightlife can 1.4-million people support?

In addition, let’s look at the viability of Lansdowne. A shopping mall with no parking … downtown. Most shopping malls give you free parking but not Lansdowne. People have voted with their feet at Lansdowne. One of the ways you test a product is to sell it. If people don’t buy it, don’t sell it. So the City of Ottawa is practising failure at Lansdowne. People don’t want it. The solution? The city gives residents more of what they don’t want. And the taxpayer foots the bill. What an incredible waste. Bad money after bad money after bad money. When did Lansdowne become so special?

Furthermore, in the big tourist scheme of things, Lansdowne doesn’t matter. It’s too far away from Parliament Hill. But the ByWard Market is not. The market is in the centre of the action.

Unfortunately, the action has become drunken partiers, the homeless, drugs, crime and nightclubs which operate between shootings. What are we telling the tourists of Ottawa? What message are they taking home to tell their friends and potential Ottawa tourists? “Come to Ottawa. Sample the Parliament Buildings, the national gallery. Have dinner in the market and get mugged at knifepoint.”

And where is Ottawa Tourism on this. It has big hitters in the city and it needs to lobby Ottawa City Hall to help set the tourism experience right. Closed businesses with papered-up windows and eviction notices on the door don’t say: “Welcome to Ottawa. Y’all come back now. Hear?”

What is the nightlife commissioner doing about this? He’s invisible. Why can’t the nightlife commissioner, of all people, get gratuitous media? Ex-mayor Jim Watson could and that really wasn’t his business. Watson for nightlife commish. You heard it here first.

The city ignores the market at its peril. It is quickly approaching the point of no return. Save the ByWard Market.

A possible marketing commercial for the ByWard Market. “Y’all come back now. Hear?” Bring a shootin’ iron.

Ken Gray

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