Queen Street E. construction hurting shops

[attach]5969[/attach]Businesses along Queen Street E. are fuming over losses they’re taking due to [url=https://streeter.ca/a-queen-sized-headache.html]ongoing construction between Greenwood and Coxwell avenues[/url].

“I’m out for blood,” said Judy Clarke, owner of East End Garden Centre, which will have to close for four weeks in August due to the road repairs.

“I will fight the city,” she added. “This business is what feeds me and I’m not letting them take that out of my hands.”

Since construction began in May, she has lost about one third of her business, which is especially difficult as her store only operates on a seasonal basis.

“We do business six months of the year, and we need this business,” she said. “It’s a really bad situation.”

Clarke’s store has been on Queen, between Greenwood and the TTC streetcar yard for 30 years, she said. In that time, she said the road has been closed for construction five times.

“Once? Okay, fine. But not five times. We keep getting hit, hit, hit,” she said, adding there should be a compromise made for the sake of the businesses.

“The problem is the only people suffering are the businesses,” she added. “And there’s no compensation for us at all.”

[attach]5970[/attach]Compensation is also the major concern for Shirley Ramundi, who owns Beaufort Décor, a store coupled with Atelier Jewellery, on Queen just west of Coxwell.

“We have no say in any of this, yet it costs us, as small business owners, 40 percent,” she said.

Her store has been there for three years and this is the second time they’ve gone through road closures for construction, Ramundi said.

This time she’s had to close her store four times in just the first month of the roadwork.

“I know this work needs to be done, but this is our livelihood,” Ramundi said.

Though she says this time around it’s been a bit easier to deal with because the construction crews are pleasant and aren’t swearing on the job site, it’s a small compensation for the loss of business.

Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon has been meeting regularly with a business management team and echoed the two shopkeepers’ sentiments, especially after work just being done in 2010.

“That was a bit of a nightmare so they’re a little worried about recovering from that financially,” she said.

Both Ramundi and Clarke say they understand work needs to be done, but neither think this is the best way.

“There’s got to be a different system for it,” Clarke said. “The businesses are really losing and (the city) definitely has to look at how they’re going to start doing this.”

Clarke says she employs a lot of students who need to pay their tuition, and with the four-week closure in August, they’re also feeling the loss.

“We’ve got bills to pay, everybody’s got bills to pay,” she said. “How do we rectify it?”

[align=right]—With files from Karolyn Coorsh
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