In a letter to Ottawa city council, the Mayfair’s owners expressed concern over the Lansdowne Live proposal (Photo: Melissa Schilz)
Some say life isn’t the movies, but the latest controversy with the Lansdowne Live proposal is the movies.
Earlier this week, Lee Demarbre, programmer for the Mayfair Theatre, and the cinema’s other co-owners – Ian Driscoll, Josh Stafford and Petr Maur – wrote an open letter to Ottawa city council, decrying the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group’s (OSEG) plans to include a two-storey, 4050-square-metre cinema complex.
Demarbre is one of the most outspoken opponents of the Lansdowne Live initiative, citing the possible negative effects the plan will have on the Glebe’s local and largely independent businesses.
“Look what happened to Sparks Street when the Rideau Centre opened,” he said. “They’re just saying what they want to say to get what they want. . . . How the hell is the [Mayfair] going to operate with a 10-screen cinema a couple of blocks away?”
In the letter, Demarbre and the Mayfair management argued that, as the Mayfair generates a large portion of its revenue from second-run Hollywood features, it would very likely suffer when placed in the vicinity of a bigger, more mainstream cinema.
They said fair competition is not part of the Lansdowne Partnership Plan which “uses public funds to subsidize a mall to be filled with large-scale, chain retailers based outside of Ottawa.”
On Oct. 22 OSEG released a detailed report authored by James Tate of Tate Economic Research in an attempt to counter accusations that the Lansdowne Live initiative would harm Glebe businesses.
But Demarbre remains unconvinced.
The OSEG report stated that established businesses would hardly be affected by the proposed commercial ventures, and in fact may actually be augmented.
Further opposition was raised in regards to the city shutting down a public design competition for a revitalized Lansdowne Park in favour of OSEG’s plan.
(Photo: Adam Dietrich)
Clive Doucet, city councillor for the Capital ward, has protested the initiative since its early stages. In an e-mail interview, Coun. Doucet referred to the initiative process as “undemocratic and procedurally illegal.”
“I have been fighting this corrupt process ever since the public design competition was stopped by staff in April of 2008 with two lines in an electronic memo, without [any] report to council , questions, debate or motions of city council,” Doucet said.
He added that the democratic process has since then been highjacked and remains that way.
“As for converting the city’s oldest and most important public space into [a] shopping centre to sell franchised goods made somewhere offshore . . . it turns my stomach.”