City shuts down Mile-End Bike Garage

[Oyez Oyez]

City shuts down Mile-End Bike Garage

par Oyez Oyez » Lun Nov 24, 2008 3:30 pm

This weekend the Mile-End Bike Garage sent out very sad news to its members: that the City is forcing the shop to close its doors, immediately. To continue to operate they must relocate to a commercially-zoned area or some other institution.

The Garage started out earlier this summer as a not-for-profit shop between the Clark-St. Urbain alleyway, south of St. Viateur; for a small membership fee anyone could come to build, fix, or maintain their bike with the help of a toolshed, a stock of basic parts available by donation, and the advice of their sage volunteers. (Check out the great of one such sage volunteer.) It was was hugely popular around the Mile-End "most bikes per fence in recorded history" community, and was part of a wave of new bike collectives that opened up recently.

[img:468:351]http://www.midnightpoutine.ca/archives/20080701bike_garage_alley.jpg[/img]

But what will happen to the pretty door and subversively cheeky graffiti?

I inquired with Hana MacDonald, one of the volunteers, to find out more about what happened. Turns out they were paid a visit from a city inspector, allegedly due to a noise complaint. The inspector told them they needed a 'certificate of occupation' for a home artisan's workshop; but when the volunteers went to apply and pay for the certificate, they were told that in fact we didn't fall into that category, but must relocate to a commercially-zoned space. If they continue
to do work on bikes in that location they risk being fined and prosecuted.

Here's more from Hana and the volunteers:

"We unfortunately do not have an institution or university to support us
like the other community bike shops in the city - Right To Move/La Voie
Libre, Santrovelo, and McGill's The Flat. We were running the shop on a
DIY basis, renting the garage from the ground-floor tenants (friends of
ours) for a small fee....

What all this means is that a highly-frequented community service
has been removed from Mile-End; we issued about 300 memberships this
past summer. We want to be able to continue offering this service, but
we will have to find a new location and acquire the proper permits etc.
This translates into much higher costs, well beyond what our
volunteer-run organization can afford.

Why the city of Montreal chooses to selectively enforce such petty
ordinances at the expense of a valuable grassroots organization is
unclear. The wording of the zoning bylaws is similarly obscure. Given
the publicity the Mayor's office has lent the recent implementation of
the Bixie bike-rental program and over-hyped expansion of bike lanes
(many of which are unsafe and poorly laid-out) the move seems all the
more counterintuitive. 


It is our hope that the absurdity of the bureaucratic crack we've
fallen into and the apparent double-standard of the city might help us
find a new, legitimate venue in which the Bike Garage will thrive."

I'm not sure what makes the bike garage a "shop" in the strict sense, but collectivist hangs such as these have always a hard time fitting into our cookie-cutter zoning molds. Hey, venerable Mile-End institutions: can anyone give these folks a home?

In the meantime you can still support the Mile-End Bike Garage effort by checking out their fundraiser at the Red Bird
Studio (135 Van Horne) on Saturday December 6, with performances from local musicians drawn from the ranks of their members and
volunteers. And as always there are the Flat, Santrovélo, or Right to Move. Here is one big fat -- though it's not totally accurate, as I know the Flat will be closed after December 11
for winter holidays.

 


Author: kelabells
Category: Bike shopsnewscollectives
Publish Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:29:00 GMT

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