Demise of The Brunswick Hotel. Effectively gone bar a miracle…NEVER forgotten.

Background: After much hard work by community members (YOU with all your letters and button clicking), combined with professional historians and researchers, the reasons for designating The Brunswick Hotel under the Ontario Heritage Act were prepared. It was an excellent case with the Hotel satisfying three sections under the Act and the LACH committee recommending restoring Priority 1 status to the hotel in the inventory of heritage resources. The case for designation was due to be heard, some say reconsidered, on Monday 20th October at a meeting of full council. As you are all no doubt aware, a wrecking crew of sorts went into the Brunswick Hotel sometime on the morning of Sunday 19th October and hacked out load bearing walls in a rear portion of the building. It is believed that this activity took place in an attempt to destroy heritage value and in turn affect how council voted on this issue the following Monday evening. At the full council meeting on Monday 20th a marginal majority of councilors effectively chose not even to hear the reasons for designation which in turn closed the debate on all of us…giving Dan Dencev EXACTLY what he wanted. The final part of the lunacy in this theatre of the absurd is that when load bearing walls were smashed out with an untrained crew, hydro lines and gas were still attached to the building. If the thought of explosion and personal injury isn’t horrifying enough, nobody bothered to put a fence around the place for 24 hours or more after the incident, and according to city staff NO BYLAWS HAVE BEEN BROKEN so they can do nothing. In fact it seems no Illegal acts have been committed at all despite gas lines there to go ‘BANG’! We ‘perceive’ a public safety issue it seems. Disconnecting the gas before hacking down walls, possibly rupturing gas lines and causing sparks is just ‘common sense’ according to city staff and they politely request heritage vandals to disconnect the gas prior to demolition…rather than compel them to do so which takes a bylaw and the will of COUNCILORS. Hmmmm. It seems the rules are in place to ensure the ‘development’ industry can do just as it pleases then…regardless of public safety…KABOOOM! (“Just give them nominal compensation…the dirty peasants will go away…OH! They’ve already gone…how clever of us…ha,ha,ha!”) HERE’S SOME GOOD NEWS. Due to the destructive actions perpetrated last Sunday morning…it has become VASTLY more expensive for Mr.Dencev to take down the building. HOORAY. The building has now got to be searched for hazardous materials such as ASBESTOS before further demolition work can proceed…this should take up to a couple of weeks to sort out. As you probably know, getting rid of asbestos is a costly procedure these days…one can only hope officialdom turns up in the coming weeks to find PILES of asbestos on the property. We never know what the Brunswick Hotel can deliver…which is why we all went there of course! For the free people of Cannuckistan…nothing is illegal…until you get caught! (Apologies to Murray Faulkner, our chief cop.) Unresolved questions: Why, when the fire department was making their fire safety inspections, did they not notice that there was NO FIRE ESCAPE attached to the hotel" Perhaps they weren’t informed, or didn’t ask, whether people were still using the rooms up there? Why did those responsible for the health of citizens NOT deal with the issue of mold on the top floors of the building? Mold is surely a public safety issue…I’m surprised the fire department didn’t have HAZMAT suits on when making their fire safety inspections. Still...it's good enough for musicans and film production groups to exist in I guess. For those living outside this city…please e-mail this notice far and wide so potential investors know how utterly foolish our dominant city councilors are…and perhaps give such investors a good laugh at the stupidity of it all at the same time. Everyone needs a laugh these days…the world seems to be going to hell. Next up: We’re planning a wake for The Brunswick Hotel…we’ll keep you posted about when and where if it all…it’ll give us all a chance to say goodbye properly. After that: Which politicians screwed us over? How we can exact a legal and socially acceptable revenge? Some news about THE RICHMOND TAVERN and the evolvement of this group. ROCK ON GUYS AND GALS. We didn’t let the old girl down…A marginal majority of city councilors did…let’s nail ‘em. Some Brunswick Love to you all. Oliver 'Stokely Wilks' Hobson and Elizabeth 'The Queen' Collingwood