Bye-bye Mackay

>> Police stand by as landlord evicts tenants

by CRAIG SEGAL

NOTICE BE ADVISE THAT THE BUILDING IS CLOSE. NOBODY IS ALLOUAD IN. WE WILL CHARGE IN JUSTICE. FOR ANY EMERGENCY CALL PAGER (514) 801-5052. [sic]

Muhammad Zafar, an engineering master's student and teaching assistant at Concordia University, read this sign on his front door when he was locked out of his home last month.

Zafar is one of nearly 30 downtown residents who lost their possessions and their apartments at 1195-1201 Mackay. Many of them say that men working for their landlord scared them out with guard dogs in the middle of the night.

Zafar has been unable to return to his apartment since that day. His belongings are locked inside his apartment, including the research project on the hard drive of his desktop IBM Pentium that he needs to graduate. Zafar estimates the total value of all his hostaged belongings at over $20,000.

Zafar's troubles date back to March 29, when Atef H. Ajjaoui and Miguel Ajjaoui's Les Cours du Roi Investment Company paid almost $700,000 for the building just south of Ste-Catherine. After the sale, tenants were instructed to pay their rent to two employees of a management company called Intercommercial Services Immobilier, owned by Hossein Bayat Makou. Two of the employees, Jean-Michel Casimir and Leonardo Arrieta told the tenants their leases would not be renewed.

Testimonies of terror

Five tenants that spoke to the Mirror say Casimir and Arrieta bullied them out by turning off their heat and hot water and threatening tenants into signing a paper to prematurely end their lease. "Arrieta brought a paper and told me to sign it," says Zafar. "He said, 'If you don't want to sign this paper, we know how to deal with you. You will see what I can do.'" Zafar refused to sign.

Hermin Tsimonidis, 61, a three-year resident of the building, says management simply refused to respect his lease. "They came and said the building would be closed and I had to get out."

John Griffiths, who lived in the building 22 years before being forced out, accuses Casimir and Arrieta of purposefully damaging the building to make it unlivable. Griffiths says the pizza restaurant in the basement was badly damaged by a pipe leak, which he suspects was man-made. "I went up to the apartment above me and saw that a pipe had been loosened. All I did was turn off the water and that stopped it. That had been going on for at least a couple of weeks."

Griffiths is fighting for $15,000 compensation for his lost home and rent at the Régie du logement. The owner of the pizza restaurant has hired a lawyer and has so far refused to move. The other commercial store in the building, a science equipment store called Lab A-Z, has decided to relocate.

With the building almost empty, Casimir says he plans to tear it down. "Since we purchased the building we've advised the tenants that we would demolish the building."

Ill-legalities

Both the city and the Régie told the Mirror they have not approved any evictions for the building. "The landlord has not gotten permission from the Rental Board to kick out his tenants," says the Board's Yves St-Germain. "Even with a one-month lease he would not have been allowed to throw them out without permission from the court."

Police have refused to intervene in the case, in spite of repeated appeals from tenants. "It's a civil conflict," says police officer Nathalie Leduc of Station 20. Leduc, one of several officers who met with the deposed tenants, says a landlord can legally throw tenants out of a building with the proper documentation. She concedes that she has not seen any such papers.

Police would do no more than to order the signs off the door.

"Most of the time the police are just not aware of the law and they should be calling the head lawyer of the police," says Ted Wright of the Westmount Legal Clinic. "The police should have at least stopped the people being thrown out, especially if it was done with the use of dogs and goons."

Casimir vigorously denies throwing tenants out of the building. "People left because the building is dirty," he says. But he acknowledges that he used dogs to throw out "squatters."

Meanwhile most tenants have given up hope. "Officially I am homeless," says Leslie Bencze, 62, now living with a friend. "Finding a new place is hopeless, especially at this time of the year. All the students are in town, snatching up these low- rental places. But that used to be my home."