WINNIPEG — A West End businessman who says the city is blaming him for a sidewalk collapsing into his building, says he’ll sue the city if they don’t take some responsibility.
Sal Infantino, owns X-Cues Billiards and Cafe on Sargent Avenue.
He’s currently renovating a 110 year old building at Sargent Avenue and Langside Street, into apartment suites and retail space.
But last July, the sidewalk in front of his business collapsed into his foundation, causing the aging building to crack and shift.
READ MORE: Owner must demolish Winnipeg building after city sidewalk collapse
After spending almost $800,000 in renovations, the city deemed the building unsafe and ordered Infantino to tear it down at his own expense.
But Infantino says the city should take some responsibility for the sidewalk caving in.
It took two days for city staff to respond to Infantino’s claims.
After much media attention, the city responded by email, stating professional opinions were sought from experts who determined the excavation work in the basement related to renovations, along with poor private drainage, were the direct cause of the building failure. And the building failure also led to a collapse of the neighbouring City sidewalk.
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Infantino responded Friday stating the work done in the basement would not cause this to happen.
“There was a gapping hole under that sidewalk, after a couple rainstorms the sidewalk collapsed and water came into my basement,” said Infantino, “this was not a result of work we did in the basement.”
The email from the city went onto to say:
The independent professional engineering report states: “the wall failed as a result of a bearing failure of the footing brought on by soil removal adjacent to the footing coupled with saturated conditions which weakened the bearing capacity of the soil. The lack of a basement floor slab or any other means of laterally restraining the base of the wall further contributed to the destabilization of the wall rendering it vulnerable to damage. It appears that as the wall settled and displaced inward the soil on the exterior also sloughed inward resulting in settlement and damage to the sidewalk.”
Infantino says he’s paid for his own engineer and shared that information with the city but he says they have not shared their findings with him.
“I just want to talk with them, I’m being ignored,” said Infantino.
Friday, someone from the Mayor’s office reached out to Infantino with an open invitation to talk.
Mayor Brian Bowman has directed one of his staff to address the matter.
“We have someone who is looking into the matter and will deal with Mr. Infantino and see if they can give him more time to sort this out,” said Bowman.
Infantino has until the end of March to get the demolition permit or he says the city will step in.
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