Mike is sick of construction on Great Northern Road

The owner of a restaurant on Great Northern Road, north of Second Line said business has slowed down due to the construction when he compares year-over-year sales.

Mike Lesage, who owns the Boston Pizza restaurant, hand-delivered a letter to the office of Don Elliott, Director of Engineering Services for the city of Sault Ste. Marie wherein he expressed his displeasure with the impact construction has had on his business.

He is requesting damages from the city for his losses.

A lack of communication and the process the contractors are following could be much better, he said.

“The city police officer simply came to the manager and said we are closing your entrance for 30 to 45 minutes and of course it was during regular business hours,” said Lesage.

Despite warm weather, Lesage said that patrons are not using the restaurant’s patio because of noise and exhaust fumes from the machinery.

“You’ve got a variety of businesses up here, why don’t you do your construction in off-hours? Why don’t you do it overnight when you don’t have any traffic on the road?” he said.

“It clearly is having an adverse effect, there has to be a better way to go about this and the city needs to move a heck of a lot quicker on this project than what they’re doing,” he said.

The letter, a copy of which was sent to SooToday.com, seeks compensation of between $1000 and $3000 per day of construction.

As of late Tuesday afternoon Elliott said he had not seen the letter and couldn’t comment on its contents.

Elliott did say the resurfacing work is being done to the lanes on the road’s west side and sidewalk and due to the machinery being used, “everybody’s access would be cut-off for some time.”

“The access to any business north of Second Line is extremely slow and people are obviously avoiding it,” Lesage said.

Lesage experienced a similar situation with another business he owns located in Barrie. In that case the city was adding an extra lane of roadway in front of his business but he said that city’s staff handled the situation much more professionally.

“There was plenty of notice of what they were going to do and what the timelines were. The construction was done with best efforts in respect to doing it in off-business hours,” he said of the Barrie city project.

The slowdown in business at the Great Northern Road location has forced Lesage to cut staff hours.

“You don’t want to be in a position where you have to cut people’s hours because that has a material effect on those people,” said Lesage.