‘It’s been a huge loss’: Crane forces early closure of seasonal businesses

On Wednesday, the provincial government extended the localized state of emergency surrounding the crane that collapsed over a building on South Park Street during hurricane Dorian.

For Stillwell Beer Garden, the extension is pretty much the nail in the coffin for their season, which typically only runs to mid-October.

“No one was expecting Sept. 7 to be their last day of work,” said co-owner Chris Reynolds.

READ MORE: Province renews emergency order for crane removal in Halifax

Reynolds says it’s a massive impact to their business, which got off to a slow start due to all the rain in June.

“September was something we were eyeing and hoping it would be a big month for us,” he said.

“Weather-wise it was tremendous. September was a beautiful month. We would have been very, very busy and we were not because of this crane.”

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Following the evacuation order for buildings along South Street, the owners of the beer garden made the difficult decision to lay off their 15 staff members.

“So that’s been really hard for them,” he said.

The Dairy Bar is also a seasonal business and likely won’t be able to reopen this season, and even the businesses that are hoping to reopen once the crane is removed are getting hit hard.

“For some of them this is the busiest time of year,” said Sue Uteck, executive director of the Spring Garden Area Business Association.

Uteck says with Thornbloom is missing out on big sales with the forced closure.

“It’s our Christmas season,” she said.

In terms of compensation, Reynolds says all the businesses are in a similar situation.

“All we know now is we’re being impacted immensely and if we can recoup some of that it’d be nice but it’s a very complicated situation.”

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So far there has been no mention of compensation from the province. When asked about who was responsible for helping those affected, Chuck Porter, the minister responsible for emergency management, would only say that his role is to ensure the site is safe.

“As far as any questions about compensation goes, I can’t speak to that, at some point down the road I’m sure there’ll be further discussion about that with someone,” he said.

When asked again by reporters who is responsible, Porter declined to answer.

“I can’t speak to that, that’s not my role,” he said.

1:59 Evacuees left in the dark after Halifax crane collapse

Reynolds says they are continuing to explore all options, including working with their own insurance.

But a Facebook post by Twiggz, which has been allowed to reopen, says that insurance likely won’t help most businesses in this situation, stating that because there was no actual damage done to the business they would require Business Interruption Insurance.

“Not all businesses have this insurance and if they do it is very limited. It is certainly not made for a month of closure. It is rare to need interruption insurance with no damages.”

As for communication from officials, Reynolds says there have been some improvements and those affected are no longer being ignored, but they still aren’t getting the information they need the most.

“We’ve sort of gotten a slow trickle of information now from various agencies and parties but still nothing concrete in terms of timelines,” he said.

The Emergency Management Office has said that the upper portion of the crane has been secured and crews are now working to securing the portion that is laying over the side of the building. Once that is complete engineers will reassess to determine how to begin the removal process.

Reynolds says he hopes the remainder of work can be completed soon so businesses can get back to normal, but he’s not optimistic.

“I’m basically out of patience with guessing at this point, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Uteck adds for the other businesses waiting to open, there are discussions being held with other landlords to talk about even renting pop-up stores to move some product, but not knowing any kind of timeline makes even that a challenge.