Intrigued by the signs posted outside this residential building on St-Antoine street in Westmount, I googled “Musée d’histoire d’harcèlement par Westmount.” To my immense surprise, it led me straight to an ad in the Westmount Independent, wishing a Happy Easter to the tenants of the building, along with contact info for potential renters. Curious, I contacted the landlord, Sam Fattal, for more information about his signage.
In lieu of a comment, Mr Fattal emailed me this elephant graphic, representing his view of the town council and encouraged me to publish it. When I persisted for extra clarification, Mr Fattal expressed that Westmount had unjustly blocked off the street and sidewalk in front of his building due to concerns about the structure. He said that, since Westmount elected officials had not been open to communicating with him, the solution would be for his property to separate from Westmount and join the “City of Montreal, Land of freedom.”
When I pointed out that Mr Fattal had recently come into conflict with both the South-West and Rosemont boroughs over the state of other residential properties, Mr Fattal replied that he had no trouble communicating with the City of Montreal. “I respect them,” he said.
The northern side of St-Antoine W is part of the town of Westmount, while the southern side of the same street lies in the St-Henri neighbourhood of Montreal.
April fools day note: although I find this situation bizarre and sort of hilarious, I assure you that it is entirely true.
5 comments
Dude, just fix your building. That is beyond exaggeration.
As a regular at Cafe Joe’s across the street, I’ve had discussions with people from that building about the weirdness going on there. But really what’s weirder? The eccentric owner, or the fact that the North side of St Antoine belongs to Westmount even though it is entirely cut off by the highway and clearly identifies more with St Henri (architecturally and culturally speaking). I don’t think Westmount wants to lose those tax dollars though.
Its westmount because of its water and its powered by westmount hydro. But yeah, fattal has a lot of buildings. He is quite the character, if your toilette breaks and floods he might take you to court instead of fixing it. The whole story behind him having the barriers around the building is his personal vendetta against westmount, and the mounting fines that hes been fighting in court for years maybe decades. I heard he showed up in court wearing only his tighty whiteys to make some sort of point. He could easily fix the building, its not like hes broke. The city expropriated his “nice” building near mtl’s new nuclear powered super hospital, just to stuff him a little bit. Im sure westmount would love to stuff him out at their first opportunity.
As of July 1st 2012,
3 avis de non-conformité des lofts Iberville suite a l’inspection de fond en comble des batiments de Sam fattal sur la rue Iberville.
Rosemont Borough
http://virtuel.24hmontreal.canoe.ca/doc/24hrsmontreal/24heuresmontreal06292012_opt2/2012062801/#8
Wanta F.
Im with you. Glad to see someone from the 1% is fighting for the 99%. St Henri is NOT Westmount. Westmount will do everything in their power to keep what belongs to us in their pocket. Vive St Henri MONTREAL Libre!!!! By the way, whats the deal with the article link by wanta? Do I really care? So the city wants a few bucks for a permit. Must be a rich Westmount politician trying dirty politics. Hey wanta, we have the same first name? Peace!