Montreal couple says power cut off at bakery over landlord dispute

Stephanie Araujo points to wasted cakes, cupcakes and pastries in the bakery she shares with her partner, Lance Daniel.

“All of this is garbage,” she tells Global News, adding she had to scrap 19 cakes.

“All that is gone now and I have to start from scratch.”

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The store, named Stephanie’s Bakery, sits on Queen Mary Road, and represents a transition for Araujo, moving from baking treats in her apartment to having a professional storefront.

“Things went wrong about two months ago when our ventilation system broke,” Daniel says.

He explains after several weeks of calling their landlord, the couple told him they’d pay half the $3,500 rent and pay the other half when it was fixed — that’s when they believe he cut their power.

They say the end result of losing refrigeration ended up costing them at least $3,000 in spoiled baked goods.

“We come back, there was no power, the electricity was gone, purposely cut out,” Daniel said.

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“There’s a door to the breaker room in the back that was locked overnight.

Global News attempted to reach Robert Sebag, who runs the company that serves as the landlord of the building, who said the situation was none of the network’s business and hung up the phone.

In Quebec, residential tenants are afforded several rights and advantages covered by the law. This is not as much the case for commercial tenants.

“In a commercial lease, the scary reality is that it’s a blank piece of paper that the parties can agree to or not,” said Elaine Rosenberg, an attorney in Westmount who specializes in commercial lease law.

Since the situation appears to be a dispute between two commercial parties, she says there might not be a role for the police to play either.

“In this case, if it’s a question of a bakery and lost goods, it would probably be a small claims claim,” Rosenberg said, specifying she has no role in the dispute and does not represent either of the parties involved.

The couple has set up a GoFundMe site in the hopes of being able to cover their court costs.

“I’m not going to let him run me out and pay him all this money because he thinks we can’t afford a legal battle with him,” Araujo said.