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Aquilini tenants

turn the

By FRED WILSON

About 50 tenants decided to
Make notorious Vancouver

dlord Luigi Aquilini as uncom-
fortable in his home as they are in
theirs by demonstrating last Satur-
day outside his N. Slocan house in
East Vancouver with signs accusing

n of abusing their rights and of
Tacism.

The publicity no doubt did make
Alquilini feel uncomfortable, but it
Still couldn’t match anything that
the tenants feel, because they have

n served eviction notices and
have nowhere to go.

The tenants are mostly im-
Migrants, and mostly non-white
Immigrants from India, Vietnam
and the Philippines. Most have liv-
€d in Aquilini’s East 6 Ave. apart-
Ment building, the Vancouver Ter-
Tace, for five or more years.

About three months ago there
Was an abrupt change of apartment
Managers and soon afterward a
Wave of eviction notices rolled
through the building. Notices have

n served against 32 tenants since
then for the flimsy charge of
depositing garbage in the wrong
Place, It later became clear that
those who put garbage in the wrong
Place just happened to be non-
White immigrants, and moreover
Occupied two bedroom apartments
Covered by rent controls.

_ Several of the most easily in-
timidated, like one family of Viet-
Namese who could not speak
English and were literally terrified
by the eviction notice, moved out
Immediately without protest.
Others took their case to the Ren-

tables

talsman’s office and in decisions
which the tenants movement finds
incredible, the evictions were
upheld.

The building could have been
just another footnote to Van-
couver’s housing crisis, silently
passed over like a thousand others
in the city where people have been
manipulated into paying unjust
rents under threat of eviction, or
unjustly evicted to make way for
those who have no choice but to
pay unjust rents.

The difference at this building
was that one of Aquilini’s eviction
notices was issued to steel worker
Jasjit Sandhu and his family of
four, tenants at the Terrace for six
years. Sandhu responded to the
notice by taking the issue to Greater
Vancouver Renters Association
and to the Committee of Pro-
gressive Electors, and by organiz-
ing a meeting of tenants to discuss
the evictions and other problems in
the building and to form an
association.

Over 100 tenants from the
building jammed into Mount Plea-
sant neighborhood house Sept. 29
in response to the initial call. Bill
Cross, veteran leader of the Van-
couver Public Housing Tenants
Association, was invited to chair
the meeting, and Jim Quail, COPE
president and an executive member
of Greater Vancouver Renters
Association, was there to give ad-
vice.

Also present were Zen and
Aquilini’s property manager and
the building manager and several
members of her family, some of
whom also were tenants. Fittingly,

WANG

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TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

the first order of business was their
eviction from the meeting, ac-
complished only after Quail had
telephoned the police to enforce the
unanimous vote to expel the
landlord representatives.

The meeting continued for
several hours as the pent up frustra-
tions with the intimidation, racist,
abuse and poor maintenance in the
building poured out.

Several tenants were desperate
after losing their appeal before the
Rentalsman. Had it not been for
that meeting, some undoubtedly
would have left the building, even
with nowhere to go. As it was, they
stayed with their cases put to either

internal review in the Rentalsman’s .

office or judicial review, avenues of
appeal they did not know existed.

As Quail stressed to the meeting,
tenants are being pushed out of
their homes when they are within
their rights to stay and fight. Even
the sheriff’s order can be appealed,
‘and more time gained.

The newly formed tenants

TENANT DEMONSTRATION .. . outside of the N. Slo

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association, now headed by Sue

Sandhu, a 21-year-old nurse, sent
delegations to Rentalsman’s hear-
ings the next week where more evic-
tions were being considered. When
those evictions were also upheld,
the action at Aquilini’s house was
launched.

Renters Association president
Tom Lalonde said this week that all
outstanding evictions will be
challenged in B.C. Supreme Court.
And the tenants association and
COPE will be taking the issue to
Vancouver city council which has
been implicated in the issue by the
landlords who have used a directive
from the city health department to
clean up the premises as a pretext
for the eviction notices.

The city’s involvement will
backfire on Aquilini if Quail has his
way. Heintends to use the occasion
to call on council to convene the
meeting of Zen and Aquilini
tenants in Vancouver to discuss the
business practices of the landlords
which was promised West End
tenants almost a year ago.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCT. 16, 1981~—Page 11

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