They could make a movie at Room 338, an on-campus U of T restaurant on the northwest corner of Harbord and Huron Streets.
The movie contains enough pathos and all the human drama to tell the most poignant of true-life stories. At the heart is expropriation without compensation to a family of four known for 12 years by many U of T students, professors and graduates.
The U of T is taking the hard line on Ho Chow, wife Mariko and their two little girls Emi, 7, and Mia, just 14 months.
..."The University has decided to lease the property at 338 Huron Street to Jewish Campus Services of Greater Toronto, the organization to which we leased the property next door at 336 Huron Street some months ago, University Director, Real Estate Don Beaton wrote Ho Chow on Nov. 24, 2000. "I appreciate that this news is unsettling and I regret the necessity of it. Jewish Campus Services attempted to prepare a plan for the planned new building at 336 Huron, but concluded that the property was not large enough to accommodate their needs, and that they needed the 338 Huron Street property as well."
With a stroke of the pen the Chow family will be out on the street on a U of T deadline of June 30, 2001.
Because the family lives in an apartment over the restaurant, they will be rendered both homeless and jobless.
"They are taking away our life and leaving us zero," Chow told Toronto Free Press.
Neither Beaton nor Zack Kaye, executive director of Jewish Campus Services could be reached for comment at press time.
To supplement his family income, the 44-year-old Chow works part-time in the film industry. In the soon to be released Spinning Out of Control, starring Kathy Lee Gifford, he plays a pharmacist. Television commercial producers seek out his daughter Emi, the cutest 7-year-old imaginable and older sister to lookalike baby sister Mia.
In this real life movie everything that the Chow family own is up for grabs.
Chow and Mariko purchased the business in 1989 and only recently fully repaid the loan of $180,000 to purchase it.
Emi, who attends Palmerston Public School, grew up at Room 338. The 50s style diner is the kind of place where students and professors come for tea and toast before long days at the University. Asif Hussain, who spent 10 years coming to the restaurant while he was studying, still frequents it after graduation.
"Small and intimate, you get to know everybody here. Room 338 is a medium for social development for most students," he said.
Room 338 is the kind of place where Mariko placed an enlarged photograph depicting the last meeting of young Canadians the day before they went to war in 1942 in the window.
There has been a restaurant at 338 Huron for the past 70 years. Each previous owner had sold their interest in the business on the premises and it seems unfair that the Chow family are the last owners to bear the brunt of an expropriation without compensation.
"With this expropriation without compensation (or even a third party discussion) your university would make the Chow family jobless with no money to buy another business or to start a new life. This is hardly an ethical act worthy of a major university. This is not a high cash flow restaurant because of seasonality and low average purchases", Chow wrote Robert J. Birgeneau, U of T president.
It seems that there are many contributors to the cash rich Jewish Students' Services Union (JSSU) and that the union spells big money for the University.
Lawyer Eric Polten of the University Avenue firm Polten and Hodder agreed to look at the case.
The Chows and their many supporters are left to ponder whether contributors to the union even know if this is how their money is being spent.
Given that the student union is destined to go through miles of red tape and zoning to have its plans for a student centre realized, the imposed June deadline has become a matter for speculation. Rumours abound among the students and professors who frequent Room 338 regarding the hard-line taken by University administration. One such rumour contends that Mariott Food, which enjoys a monopoly on food services at U of T, is out to get rid of the competition at Room 338.
According to a recent amendment to the Toronto Official Plan, concerning U of T building plans, there would be no change on the corner of Harbord and Huron for the foreseeable future.
"The Huron-Sussex area is the last remnant of the residential neighbourhood which once existed west of St. George St., most of which was built circa 1900 (as typical of the City's central area neighborhoods). The main value of the area lies in the attractive ambience of a small scale, neighbourhood of older houses, on tree-lined streets and lanes. Some of the buildings were converted to institutional uses by the major landowner in the area, the University of Toronto, during the period of rapid institutional expansion. Section 18.49 of the Official Plan stabilized the Huron-Sussex area as a Low Density Residential Area until 1999, permitting the established institutional uses to remain, subject to further study."
Even in situations where there is potential discrimination on the basis of economics, there is still zoning and the ability of Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) appeals, no matter how rich and powerful the proponents.
The white knights in this true-life story include Trinity-Spadina New Democrat Party MPP Rosario Marchese.
..."While I realize that the University is within its legal rights, I am concerned about the very great hardship that this will place on Mr. Chow and his family, who will be rendered both jobless and homeless by this action on the part of the University," Marchese wrote to Birgeneau. "As a graduate of the U of T, I would hope that the University and Jewish Campus Services could work together to find a solution to this dilemma, either by assisting Mr. Chow to find another location for his business in the neighbourhood or by compensating him for his loss of business."
"It's a situation of you're just another number. A bigger number comes along and you're out of here," says Chow.
"Why are we so expendable? Did the University make any efforts to consider our position in this matter, for example, were any other locations offered to the Jewish Students' Union?"
"We cannot dispute the need for a student meeting place. Indeed, we have provided one to the general university population as well as the residential community for 12 years with a minimal cost to the university," he said.
Meanwhile, the U of T's Don Beaton and company may make for a formidable foe. But the owners of Room 338 have a formidable cast made up of U of T students, professors and graduates. They will tell the other side there is nothing so disarming as the innocent faces of Emi and Mia Chow.
This family and supporters will not go down without a fight.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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