Tenants launch damage suits,

i

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

City Council acted wrongly, on
December 2, when it voted to close
down the East Hotel on Gore
Avenue because its owners refused
a fire protection system as
required by city bylaws. And
rentalsman Barrie Clarke com-
pounded the wrong by issuing an
order for the eviction of the hotel’s
(actually it is a roomong house) 40
tenants.

About 50 of the approximately
180 rooming houses in the down-
town eastside of the city (often
referred to as the skid road area)
have refused to install either a
sprinkler system or a_ closed
Stairwell as fire prevention
measures. When fires occur they
become virtual death traps. Most
recent was the Georgia Hotel when
three men died in the fire on Oc-
tober 1.

These slum landlords are
defying city by-laws in the ex-

closure appeal at East Hotel

Tenants at the East Hotel in
Vancouver have launched a
damage suit against the landlord
and the Downtown Eastside
Residents Association has entered
an appeal in county court against a
city of Vancouver closure order in
the continuing dispute at this
downtown tenement hotel.

As early as last May, efforts
were made by the landlord to evict
tenants from the hotel and
although notices to quit were
declared invalid in a small claims
court decision September 25, the
landlord issued new eviction
notites October 4. In both cases,
the notices were issued in response
to demands by tenants that the
hotel be brought up to standards
required under the city’s lodging
house and fire bylaws.

A week after the last notice to
vacate, tenants
provincial rentalsman Barrie

Clarke calling on him to use the’

applied to:

authority given:him in a section of
the Landlord and Tenant Act to
take over the rents of the hotel and
bring the building up to standard.
Another week later, on October 22,
the city of Vancouver issued a
closure order on the hotel.

Clarke, in a letter significantly
dated the day after the Vancouver
civic elections, told the Downtown
EastSide Residents Association
that he was not going to take any
action in the matter. He stated that
he would take no action as the
closure order was valid, even
though the application of the
tenants to the rentalsman to take
over the rents and repair the hotel
clearly established the prior
authority of the provincial
government.

In relinquishing his authority,
Clarke stated “it is our decision
that the owners of these premises
have a bona fide right to cease
operation of this business.”

The closure order was due to
become effective at 5 p.m.,
December 6 but lawyer for the
D.E.R.A., Stuart Rush entered an
appeal against the closure in
county court prior to the closure,
postponing, at least, the execution
of the order.

The appeal was based on the
contention that the order was not,
in fact, bona fide since virtually all
other accommodation in the
downtown eastside is similarly in
violation of standards required by
lodging house and fire bylaws.

Tenants in the hotel have also
been subjected to pressure from
the owners and both heat and hot
water have been cut off, forcing
tenants — most of them pensioners
— to keep their overcoats on.

Damage suits for $1000 each
have been launched by the 37
tenants for services which were not
provided over the past two years.

pectation that the city will close
them down. Then they plan to
renovate their properties and turn
them into commercial establish-
ments. In the meantime the lives of
the tenants are endangered. And
the landlords couldn’t care less
what happens to their tenants if
and when they secure permission
to evict them.

In the case of the East Hotel we
had the unique situation where the
lawyer for the owners was arguing
before City Council in favor of the
city closing down the hotel because
it failed to observe city by-laws!

When I cross examined the
representative of the owners, this
is what I found: This hotel has a
commercial enterprise (some
stores and a restaurant on its main
floor) and presumably it is a
money-maker. The owner and his
son rented the rooms of the hotel
(the upper floors) to son number
two. Consequently it was quite
easy for son number two to appear
before Council’s Committee and
“‘prove’’ that the income from his
tenants did not cover the cost of
fire prevention installations.

This is the sort of jiggery pokery
that even some of the biggest

ox

Tom McEwen, author of the
popular “The Forge Glows Red”,
will attend an autographing party
at the People’s Co-op Bookstore
Saturday, Dec. 14 from 2 to 4
p.m. Tom’s book is enjoying a
brisk sale all across Canada. Close
to 150 copies of the book have
been sold in the PT’s special offer
which expires Dec. 31.

a

landlords |
clean up roominghouses |

landlords are carrying on to bul
tress their phony arguments that
they can’t afford fire prevention
measures. ;
And when City Council didn’t
close down the hotel as its owners
demanded, the owners proceed
to make life unbearable for the.
tenants. The water and heat were
cut off. No maintenance or repall
work was done. Dirty sheets an@
mattresses weren’t changed. And
all this in defiance of city by-laws:
The Downtown Eastside
Residents Association (DERA) —
headed by Bruce Eriksen has beet
fighting to clean up filthy flea bag

rooming houses and make them fit |

and safe for human habitation. We
have been demanding not that City
Council close them down, but that
City Council force them to clean UP
and take fire prevention measures:

My stand is that if the ownels
refuse to do it, then the city should
order it done and send the lat

. dlords the bill. My contention 1

that we have the right to do this ©
under the city’s charter. Bit
Mayor Art Phillips and his TEAM
majority on Council say this is #
“no-no”. The Mayor now says We
must close them down if they
refuse to obey city by-lawS
ignoring the fact that these tenants
will be forced to seek a&
comodation in other buildings JUS
as unsafe and dirty or more so tha?
the buildings from which they wer?
evicted. rie

What our Mayor and his Coun¢
are doing, in effect, is siding W}
the slum landlords against

“tenants.

It is hard for these tenants, most
of whom ‘are poor people, to fig rf
their case alone. They need all E
help they can get — from the tra ia
union movement and _ all nn
minded people and groups W
believe in justice and fair play:

SESS

HAVE YOU

RENEWED YOUR
PT SUB YET?

_ McEWEN

omething of a Watergate is emerging in Ottawa. It
Noses that just prior to the last federal election,
substantial donations to Liberal coffers were made by the
notorious Seafarers International Union (SIU) earmarked
for the election campaign of federal labor minister John
Munro in his Hamilton riding.

A second ministerial kingpin, solicitor-general Warren
Allmand, has also admitted receipt of donations, plus
some bill-posting and the other assistance from the SIU.

With such honorable (?) ministers of the Trudeau
cabinet ready recipients of SIU largesse, one would be
naive, indeed, knowing the nefarious background of the
SIU leadership, to think that something substantial in
return was not part of this ‘“gentlemen’s agreement.”
Defending his actions in accepting the tainted cash of the
SIU, the solicitor-general is quoted as saying ‘‘there is no
evidence of SIU wrongdoing in recent years’. . . no strings
were attached (to the donations) . . . they never ap-
proached me to do anything wrong .. .”’

Where in the hell has he been all these years?

It is well known in the U.S. and Canada that the SIU,
under the leadership of the infamous Hal Banks and his
successors, has made substantial donations to the parties
of big business be they Democrat or Liberal, Tory or
Republican, and this without any by-your-leave from the
SIU membership. The most reactionary and the most
rewarding in promising concessions were all that con-
cerned Banks. :

This ex-convict, hooligan and gangster, dictator without
peer in the annals of the business unionism, pioneered this

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1974—Page 2

close association with ruling Establishments of the period
because it paid off in handsome dividends to him and his
criminal cohorts.

Back in the early 1920s, the Communists were in on the
ground floor of the SIU, primarily to organize the seamen
on the seven seas and to reverse the trend towards graft,
corruption and violence which was already too obvious for
the good of the SIU or any union. Early in the 1930s, a few
Communists got together in the city of Toronto and
decided on the birth of a new Canadian Seaman’s Union
(CSU). Among them were Harvey Murphy, Gerry Mc-
Manus (since expelled from the Communist Party for
drunkenness) and the writer of this column.

This the CSU was launched and within a short time
commanded the widest respect in every major port of the
world and on the high seas. During its short life it won
many gains from the shipowners — the full manning of
ships, better living conditions and decent wage rates for
all classes of seamen. That, with its Solidarity and unity
with other maritime unions and longshoremen, made it
the pattern and pride of Canadian labor.

For the Establishment of the day and especially for the
Liberal government of the King-St. Laurent era, a
problem arose: how to smash the CSU and with it a proud
Canadian merchant marine.

How better to do that than to bring the SIU gangster Hal
Banks to Canada, surround him with an acm a respec-
tibility and help him £0 to work on the CSU. And there
were hordes of well-tailored labor fakers who would vouch
for his “integrity.”

The late — and unlamented — Claude Jodoin, president
of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada, eR loudly
and feelingly of the “fine citizen” that Banks was; Frank

forgotten among the many other character witnesses wa
David Lewis, later to become the leader of the NDP, W
acted as Banks’ legal advisor. the
While it may be added, just for the record, that ¥
Sangster Banks never did obtain Canadian citizenship:
despite the efforts of his character witnesses in Dif
places, he did win a warm place in the anti-commu? f
hearts of shipowners and politicians of every vintage
above ali the Liberal Party of Messrs. King and
Laurent. With Banks leading the way, the Liberals sco
a double victory — the destruction of a militant Canadit
union, the CSU, and the scuttling of a once proud Canadi@® _
merchant marine. tion
How was such a feat accomplished? By the importa 4
of and close association with U.S. gangsterism, plus of
closer cooperation with a then SIU-subsidized ministe!
labor and an equally corrupt justice department, ;
Banks and his goon squads had a free hand.

And that hand was usually armed with knuckle-buste’ :

chain and clubs. CSU-manned ships on the Welland Cate
in the port of Montreal, Toronto, Sarnia, at the head % cit
Lakes, anywhere and everywhere, were stripped of th
CSU crews and replaced with Banks “finest”, —
hordes of RCMP on hand to enforce this Liberal-appY°
violence and scabbery.

Just as I was finishing this column, a voice came fi
the radio announcing, “. . . there has been en0 six
thuggery and violence in the SIU during the past
months to warrant another investigation.’ No wonder eal
present fedéral minister of labor, our solicitor-ge” U
and sundry other MPs are feeling disturbed — iple
gangsterism of the Banks variety and respons” —
government don’t mix. oo

It’s time for a Canadian Watergate investigation, all
to flush out the SIU and Liberal plumbers — wi
cover-ups barred!

valle

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