More on @BizLondon Oct. cover story: @london_airport #LdnOnt

            It probably goes without saying that anyone who builds an airplane in his garage and then flies himself and his wife to Northern Ontario for vacation is an optimist.

            So we can stipulate Mike Seabrook is an optimist. The fuel tank is half full, not half empty.

            That optimism helps explain the plan he has to boost passenger traffic at the London International Airport by 50 per cent over the next three years – from 500,000 to 750,000 annually.

            As you can read in this month’s issue of Business London magazine, since the day Seabrook took over as president of Southwestern Ontario’s largest airport in May, 2012, he has focused his energy on growth.

Mike Seabrook built and flies a tandem-seat RV-8 airplane like this one. His is purple and resides in a hangar at the London airport

         He’s determined to capture a significant slice of travelers who live within an hour or two of the airport but routinely drive across the U.S. border to catch flights in Detroit, Flint, Niagara Falls and Buffalo. He’s got the studies to show there are 2.2-million such people – easy to believe if you’re trying to cross the Windsor-Detroit border on a typical weekend and are stuck behind a never-ending line of cars and trucks.

             So ya, travelers would love to make the easy drive to London, park for the bargain sum of $50/week, and make connections to the rest of the world. Of course, it ain’t that easy.

             For starters, airports in Canada have higher cost structures than those in the U.S., so comparable flights from London are more expensive than those across the border. If an airline can fill most of its flights operating from Buffalo or Flint, why would it spend the money to set up shop in London, Ontario?

             It would only do so if Seabrook and his colleagues could demonstrate doing so would be profitable.

             “Airline assets are portable, by their nature,” Seabrook says. “They can deploy their aircraft wherever they can make a profit.”

            It took about seven years for the folks at the London airport to convince United to offer connecting flights to Chicago. That started four years ago, and by all accounts has been a successful venture for United. The Chicago model was one of the factors that prompted United to expand its London flights and begin flying to and from New York later this month.

            The New York flights are a real coup for London, promising to boost passenger numbers in the direction of Seabrook’s goal of 750,000. But they alone won’t get him there. He needs more airlines, more flights, more destinations to lure significantly more travelers.

            The airport needs to reach the next critical mass point, with so many more travelers that airlines want to add flights to gain part of the growing London pie. Airlines are famously volatile; they contract and expand based on dozens of economic and political factors, most of which the London airport cannot control or even influence.

            Seabrook and his team work every day on the things they can control: making the airport a more attractive place for travelers and airlines alike. And they pitch the hell out of their service, doing whatever they can to lure new airlines and new flights to the city.

            If they keep doing that and airlines like United take notice and add new destinations like New York, they just might meet their goal. But it’s a long shot, the kind of goal only an optimist would set.

#JoeSwan 's milquetoast platform #LdnOnt @Munici_politics @Downtown_London

I must admit to being confused. I was under the impression Joe Swan was running for mayor of London, a city of close to 400,000 people with a multi-billion-dollar economy.

            After seeing Swan’s seven-point economic development plan announced yesterday, I’m thinking he must be running for reeve of a small hamlet somewhere else in Southwestern Ontario.

            The plan – as reported by various media but remarkably, not posted on his campaign website the day he announced it – calls for $10-million in spending to stimulate the city’s economy and create jobs.

            If that $10-million figure sounds familiar, you might be thinking of the $10-million Swan loudly opposed giving Fanshawe College to help it renovate the former Kingsmill’s department store. That project will attract 1,600 additional Fanshawe students downtown and generate $150,000 in tax revenue annually for the city.

            It passed last week, over Swan’s politically expedient objections, to the relief of left-wing, tax-and-spend organizations like the Downtown Business Association and the London Economic Development Corp. Not to mention the city’s treasurer and chief planner.

            Licking his wounds from that loss and a London Free Press poll that showed him running fourth in what had been considered a three-man race, Swan summoned local media Friday and unveiled his grand economic development plan, a plan he promised would, “turn economic development on its head.”

            Bring it on Joe, hit us with both barrels. Whatcha got to create jobs in the city and fuel your run to victory on Oct. 27?

            What he’s got is a weak-kneed, milquetoast plan to inject $10-million into the city’s economy. He’s going to turn economic development on its head by spending 1.3 per cent of city hall’s 2014 budget of $776-million. It’s like tipping your waitress $2 after a great dinner with your sweetheart. Or tipping the pizza delivery guy a handful of nickels.

            That ain’t gonna get it done Joe.

Joe pledges to 'turn economic development on its head'                         Photo: Metro News

            Not only is the $10-million figure so small as to have virtually no effect, he has spread it out over a seven-point plan full of trivial, gee-wouldn’t-it-be-great-if proposals.

            A Shop Local London website? Really? That’s going to turn economic development on its head? Have you ever used Google Joe? It kind of takes care of the shop local angle for those looking to do so. If a micro-enterprise can’t figure out how to create a website for $200/year and open a Twitter account, it’s not going to be around long enough to create any jobs.

            Glomming on to the Ivey Business School, Swan allocates another micropayment of $250,000 to create some kind of international think tank in association with the school. “Cultural leaders” will cross-promote business and culture. Huh?

            The big ticket item is $5-million – or 0.65 per cent of the city budget – in start-up capital for businesses ready to grow – shovel-ready, to use a phrase that expired two years ago. The money must be matched by investors and will be managed by the LEDC. That could create some jobs. Ten maybe. Twenty perhaps. Great news in that hamlet where Swan’s apparently running for office. In the London economy, it’s not even enough to cause a ripple in the Thames.

            There’s $1.5-million for “21st Century industries.” Swan cited some examples: fashion design, online writing and app creation. Let’s be generous and assume his examples are the weak part of the proposal and he’s also talking about game developers and web-based design businesses. The thing holding those businesses back is not the lack of a few shekels from the city. The struggle is finding people with the necessary skills to do the work.

            Stand by, Swan has a plan for that problem too. He’s offering $5 per hour for every post-secondary student hired locally. That, he claims arbitrarily, could create 75 jobs. Yes, 75 whole jobs in a city of nearly 400,000. And that presumes employers are going to be swayed by $5/hour/new employee. If they are, it’s not going to be in the 21st Century industries, that’s for sure.

            There’s more to the plan, and if it’s ever posted on Swan’s campaign website there might be more details. But the basics will remain. The candidate who plans to turn economic development on its head has pledged 1.3 per cent of the city hall budget to build websites and set up think tanks.

            Good news Orchestra London. You’ll be getting your executive director back in about six weeks. 

@Downtown_London biz transforms into @Hangar9ByFC, @BizLondon Sept cover

The plan was to get a new logo and maybe splash on a fresh coat of paint.

            Instead, Jo-Ann Fisher and her daughters spent two weeks this summer scrubbing walls, shelves and mannequins. They altered their colour scheme, replaced the floors, cabinets and countertops. They changed the name of their 30-year-old business. And, oh yes, they did get that new logo.

            As you can read about in this month’s Business London magazine cover story, Fisher & Company, the venerable Richmond Row upscale women’s clothier, is now Hangar9. As Fisher prepares for semi-retirement, when she will leave the business to three of her daughters, she has gambled on an new image, all the while offering the same level of service that made the store something special from the moment she opened three decades ago.

             The Fisher women knew all too well how their store was perceived by shoppers. “Old,” Jo-Ann says plainly. “But we weren’t old, never have been,” she says. Still, the new look is designed to quash that perception and attract younger women (and men for the first time) to the store.

            Let’s be honest. By any name, the shop is not inexpensive. It’s popular among professional women who have more money than time and appreciate the service provided by the Fishers and their staff. Customers can book an appointment to go in and put together an entire wardrobe. The ‘9’ in Hangar9 refers to the idea that 9 core items can form the foundation for enough fashion combinations to get someone through a month.

            Shoppers who buy in receive a glossy book of photos, featuring them wearing their own clothes. It’s the last 10 minutes of What Not to Wear. You look through the book and find a combination for the day, relying on your 9 basic pieces and as many accessories as you can fit in your closet.

            While maintaining the personal service angle, Hangar9 also has introduced some fancy lines, including Marie Saint Pierre, the premium line in the store. The MSP rep working with the Fishers is the fourth daughter in the fashion-savvy family. Natch.

            It takes guts to gut a store that’s been a success for 30 years and launch something all new, targeted in part at a new clientele. But it’s a gamble the Fishers have taken on enthusiastically. Their Toronto by-appointment-only shop is being transformed as well. They’re all in on Hangar9 – substantially more than a new logo and a fresh coat of paint.

#JoeSwan advice thru history @FanshaweCollege #LdnOnt @Munici_politics @Downtown_London

Joe's signs were up in July, before he had even registered as a candidate.

Imagine you’re running for mayor of a medium-sized Canadian city.

You’ve been on city council for several years, but you haven’t done anything in particular to distinguish yourself. In fact, the thing you’re best known for is having an ongoing conflict of interest on the question of whether the city will build a performing arts centre. That’s because you’re the executive director of that city’s orchestra, which would not only play there but has advanced a rather sketchy plan to build the facility itself.

When the voters in your city think about you at all, it’s as a big backer of the disgraced former mayor. He’s at home now, serving a four-month house arrest sentence after being convicted of fraud and breach of trust. But that’s another story.

As an unintended homage to the former mayor, you violate election rules the moment you kick off your campaign by spending lots of money for signs, brochures and a spiffy website before bothering to actually register as a candidate. Details, details.

To divert attention from your fumbled campaign launch, you lash out at one of your principal rivals, saying 41 is too young to be mayor. Nevermind, the 41-year-old in question has been on council the last four years. Only curmudgeons with conflicts of interest need apply for the mayor’s job.

When that comment lands with a thud on the electorate’s doorstep, you find another distraction – sorry, issue – and pounce on that. You bravely vote against spending city dollars to subsidize the redevelopment of a downtown landmark building. By pure coincidence, your two primary opponents support the expenditure. You are the only viable candidate opposed to the plan.

Welcome to the world of Joe Swan, in which the candidate running for mayor of London, Ontario didn’t just vote against the expenditure. Oh no. Candidate Swan held a news conference last week to give some advice to the organization hoping to buy said downtown landmark building. That would be Fanshawe College, bursting at its main campus seams, a college that’s already operating its Centre for Digital and Performing Arts right across the street from the building in question, the former Kingsmill’s department store.

Candidate Swan told Fanshawe College to buy another downtown property. Without knowing the details of Fanshawe’s business plan or specific requirements, Candidate Swan constructively chastised the college for its “wasteful” plan, standing in front of a phalanx of election signs – a sure indication he was earnestly trying to help the college do what’s best, not latching on to a wedge issue and riding it wherever it takes him.

The college’s new president, Peter Devlin, thanked Candidate Swan for his business advice but said Fanshawe will continue plotting its future without his help.

That’s a shame, because looking back in history, it’s clear Candidate Swan has a keen sense of how organizations and businesses should operate, when they should and shouldn’t spend money. And thankfully, he’s not shy about imparting his knowledge publicly so everyone can benefit.

It was Joe Swan who told Henry Ford not to bother with his Model T. “What’s wrong with horses and buggies?”

It was Joe Swan who told Google the Internet was just a fad and wouldn’t catch on. “No one knows what a search engine is, and you should change your company name too. What does Google mean?”

It was Joe Swan who told McDonald’s the world was going vegan. “Concentrate on salads and hummus. You’ll never sell billions and billions of burgers. Trust me.”

It was Joe Swan who told Kodak not to bother investing in digital photography. “You’ve got the film market to yourself. Stick with it.”

It was Joe Swan who told General Electric the light bulb was too finicky to manufacture and distribute.

It was Joe Swan who told Wal-Mart shoppers wanted less selection and higher prices.

It was Joe Swan who mocked the Wright brothers and Alexander Graham Bell.

It was Joe Swan who told Starbucks no one would pay $4.00 for a latte when Folgers instant coffee was available in every grocery store.

It was Joe Swan who looked askance at the guy who fashioned the first wheel. “No practical applications.”

It was Joe Swan who said to Jesus, “No one will remember you when you die.”

Clearly, Joe Swan has an innate sense of right and wrong, good and bad, success and failure. He’s prescient, clairvoyant and eager to help.

Fanshawe College would be crazy to ignore his advice. Just as voters in London, Ontario would be crazy to choose anyone else for mayor this October.

More on @BizLondon August cover story, @EWSNetwork, #EmployeeWellness, golfing @EdgewaterGC #LdnOnt

The beautiful 15th hole at Edgewater Golf Club in Lancaster, S.C. Lots of steps recorded...even with a cart.

When I visited my brother and his family near Charlotte, NC, this spring, he was wearing a pedometer everywhere he went, including Edgewater Golf Club with me on a beautiful Good Friday. It recorded the thousands of steps he took, many in the woods looking for my Titleist.

            He wasn’t doing it simply for curiosity’s sake. It was part of an incentive program offered by his employer, Bank of America. Groups of employees and their family members formed teams of 8 to 11 people and were eligible to win Amazon gift cards, Fitbit Zips or donations to Habitat for Humanity. To win, they had to clock 56,000 steps in at least four of eight weeks or do 140 minutes of exercise in at least four of eight weeks.

            So far in 2014, bank employees have walked more than 21 billion steps, lost more than 66,000 lbs. and done more than 1.5-million hours of exercise. Granted, Bank of America has a lot of employees – known as associates in bank-ese – but those are still some impressive numbers.

            It’s not just large American financial institutions, however, that are interested in the health of their employees. As I wrote about in the August issue of Business London magazine, lots of London organizations have adopted employee wellness programs, many of them with the help of EWSN, the Employee Wellness Solutions Network. Owned by husband and wife Garth and Meaghan Jansen, it sets up all kinds of programs, activities and challenges for its clients’ employees.

            Whether it’s personal fitness programs, support to help quit smoking or lunchtime talks about healthy cooking, EWSN consultants try to provide whatever information and assistance people want.

            Of course, not everyone at any given organization is interested in having management force-feed them fitness information and activities. At London Hydro, for example, the participation rate hovers around 30 per cent of the 300 employees. But London Hydro manager of health and safety Jeff Harrison is encouraged by that number and has seen noticeable benefits since the program began as a pilot project in 2008.

            Not everything can be measured, so proponents of such programs rely on anecdotal evidence and common sense to make the case that a healthier work force is more productive and creative. One thing that can be measured is health claims. Across the board, it seems organizations that engage in a well-designed, well-implemented wellness program reduce the medical claims of their workforce.

            In the U.S., where private health care costs are a significant cost for employers, that’s a big deal. Bank of America told its employees that health benefit costs in 2015 will not increase, breaking a trend of the last few years, largely because of the fitness challenge.

            London Hydro has also seen a drop in health claims from a healthier workforce since it began its program.

            As Garth Jansen told me, skeptics can always poke holes in any evidence supporters of such programs offer. There are simply too many variables that could account for changes in performance in a company. But years of evidence at numerous organizations has convinced him it makes a real difference in the lives of employees. It certainly is popular with many of those who participate.

            The gym at law firm Harrison Pensa is used every single day, weekends included. And Harrison says he can’t imagine Hydro ever walking away from the program. It’s simply too popular among employees.

#AliensAttackedMyCar: the latest from #MrLube and my lawsuit after #BotchedOilChange #LdnOnt

Did aliens attack my car, fiddle with the oil pan plug and cause the oil to start gushing out this winter? That appears to be the working theory of the legal minds representing Matt Rowswell, owner of the Mr. Lube that botched my oil change in January, leading to a $600 repair bill.

            As you can read in earlier postings, I sued Matt – known in legal documents as Donald – for the cost of the repair, a refund of the original oil change, the cost of the rental car I needed while my car was out of commission and legal costs. When he failed to respond by the court-imposed deadline, a judge ruled in my favour and awarded me $932.46 – everything but the cost of the rental car.

            That’s when Matt/Donald and his paralegal sidekick Ronald Trachy of St. Thomas swung into action. First they asked the court for a mulligan. Blaming his employees and the general chaos within his Mr. Lube empire, he said he needed more time to craft a defence. That hearing, originally scheduled for June 20, took place July 4 and granted him the right to file a defence.

            Having missed his original opportunity to file a defence, Matt/Donald has taken full advantage this time, blaming everyone except O.J. Simpson for his technician’s original error.

            The most creative – and frankly alarming to the general public – theory is that, “there was tampering of the oil pan drain plug by a person or persons unknown.”

            That’s right. A roving band of thugs targeted my vehicle sometime this winter and tampered with the oil pan plug. They didn’t pull it right out; they just jiggled it enough to cause a leak over the following days and weeks. Could this be the work of rival Jiffy Lube? Did they hire some out-of-work mechanics to follow Mr. Lube customers and tamper with their oil pan plugs?

Did E.T. tamper with my vehicle's oil pan plug?

            Or could it have been aliens, seeking to understand earth’s internal combustion technology, who inadvertently replaced the oil pan plug incorrectly? You can’t blame an alien for not understanding the finer points of inserting a Volkswagen oil pan plug. One of Matt/Donald’s own employees told me this spring how difficult that is.

            In his defence, Matt/Donald promises to produce evidence that an incorrectly inserted oil pan plug will begin leaking within four days. Yes, the defence is: When we have botched this procedure in the past, the leak has started much sooner. Since we didn’t botch it as badly this time and it took longer for the oil to start leaking, well, it must have been aliens.

            I don’t know a lot about Ronald Trachy, the Clarence Darrow behind this entertaining defence. But I have to assume he owns a thesaurus. In his long list of claims, he refers to my rental car claim as “unecessary, frivolous, vexatious and erroneous.” In addition to misspelling unnecessary, he seems to be doing his best impression of Kramer’s lawyer, Jackie Chiles.

            I have no idea if Jackie Chiles could spell or construct proper written sentences. That talent has eluded Mr. Trachy, whose carefully crafted defence is full of errors.

            Now I wait for the court to set a date for a settlement conference. That is supposed to take place within 90 days, at which time I can ask Matt/Donald or Ronald Trachy what they know about the aliens who attacked my car. I hope they have photos.

More on @BizLondon July cover story, Moffatt and Powell #LdnOnt

            It’s often said umpires or referees have done an excellent job officiating a game if no one notices them during the game or remembers them after. If, on the other hand, they perform like baseball’s C.B. Bucknor and blow calls, forget the ball-strike count and toss managers from the game when they ask for explanations, they are hardly invisible.

C.B. Bucknor in action

            The same goes for generational transitions within family-owned companies. When they go right, we never hear about them. But when they go wrong, whoa, do we hear about them. Sometimes it ends up in court. Sometimes the company is sold to outside interests. However they end, Thanksgiving is never the same for the extended family.

            Here in London, the first example many people think of is Cuddy International, which was sold to Cargill Ltd. in 2001 after a decade of jockeying by members of the family to run, buy or sue the company patriarch Mac Cuddy had built. The battle was the C.B. Bucknor of family squabbles. But it was hardly alone. Family succession planning can take many forms, including no planning at all. Nothing happens until the person running the business gets sick or dies. Panic ensues and the business tanks.

            This month’s Business London magazine cover story is about Moffatt and Powell, the Southwestern Ontario lumberyard and building centre. It is a prime example of family succession done well.

            Four years ago, Nancy Powell-Quinn and her husband D’Arcy Quinn bought the business from her father, Dave Powell, and his business partner, Keith Moffatt. Dave continues to play an informal role with the company, but it is clearly being run by the next generation. Since taking over, the thirtysomething couple has modernized and expanded, fighting for market share in a segment dominated in North America by Home Depot and Lowe’s. They forged a buying alliance with Rona and are in the process of broadening the range of products and services offered at their six locations.

Moffatt and Powell HQ, Hyde Park in London

            But it was never their goal to do any of that. In fact, they were happily living in Winnipeg, both with thriving careers, when her father – visiting for Christmas in 2006 – broached the idea of their coming back to London and getting involved with the company.

            It seems many a successful in-family transition includes new owners who have spent some time out in the workforce, learning about the world, rather than occupying a corner office in the family business and waiting impatiently to take over.

            Another key to success is for the next generation to start somewhere other than the top. When Nancy and D’Arcy moved to London and got involved with the business, they started at mid-level, reporting not to her father but to a general manager.

            “That was key, that they reported to someone other than me,” Dave told me when I was writing the story.

            Family businesses can take all the right steps and still fail, of course. Moffatt and Powell is in a tough industry, dependent on housing starts that ebb and flow with the performance of the economy. As the business battles behemoths like Home Depot, it is not encumbered by family or management strife, however. And that’s a key element to get right, if a company is going to survive and be passed from one generation to another in perpetuity. 

#Cincinnati road trip to see @BlueJays play @Reds, visit @NewportAquarium

Cincinnati…who knew?

           The novelty of interleague play in baseball has long since passed. What started in 1997 as a rare spectacle has become commonplace, with at least one interleague game every day now that the American and National Leagues each have 15 teams. When the split was 16 National and 14 American, there was no need for interleague matchups.

            Whatever the larger implications of continued interleague play are, this past weekend it delivered the Blue Jays to Cincinnati for a rare series there. The two teams had only ever played 12 times.

            Spencer and I headed out Friday morning for what we expected would be a 7-8 hour drive from London, crossing the border at Detroit and heading straight down I-75 to the Queen City (a nickname Charlotte, NC, also uses btw). Torrential rain, traffic jams and a search for chewable, children’s Advil in Monroe, Michigan, added some time to the journey. We arrived in Cincinnati around 6:30 Friday night.

            We had tickets to Saturday’s ballgame, so we planned to spend the evening checking out some of the sights of the city. Having never been to Cincinnati or given it much thought, I didn’t realize it sits right on the Ohio-Kentucky border, essentially sharing its metropolitan area with Covington, Kentucky. Maybe they could borrow another nickname and become the Twin Cities.

            We stayed in Covington, and were only a 10-15 minute walk away from Great American Ballpark, a terrific venue that holds about 45,000 people and features all kinds of attractions, food and fun. It’s a throw or two from Paul Brown Stadium, where the Bengals play. Both sit on the river and look great from a vantage point on the other side.

Cincinnati, across Ohio River as seen from Covington, Kentucky

            After checking in, we grabbed a cab and headed to Newport on the Levee, a collection of restaurants and shops, anchored by the Newport Aquarium, which was worth the trip all by itself. The Levee sits on the Kentucky side of the river. The cabbie was listening to the Jays-Reds game, and as we headed out for the evening, the score was 8-0 Reds…in the second inning. Ouch. Wearing our Blue Jays hats, we were among a handful of Jays fans roaming around the area, none too happy with the way the first game of the weekend series had started.

            We stumbled across GameWorks, a cool place for all ages, with video and active games, some retro and some designed to spit out tickets so kids can spend $50 to take home a $5 prize purchased with their winnings. We played everything, including old-school pinball, a first for Spence.

            By the time we had burned through our tokens and Spence had spent his tickets in the prize zone, it was the 7th inning of the game. We sat down at the adjoining bar to watch. Whoa, it was now 9-8 Reds. The Jays had come almost all the way back. We watched for a while, and then hopped in another cab back to the hotel. We got there in time to watch the 9th inning in the bar, jammed with Reds fans. We watched the Jays tie the score at 9, then pull ahead 10-9, 11-9, then boom, 14-9, thanks to a 3-run home run from Edwin Encarnacion, his second 3-run bomb of the game.

            Sure it would have been fun to be at that game, but watching it from across the river, among all those Reds fans, was a blast. It also inoculated us somewhat for what was to follow the next day, when we walked across the purple bridge, a 15-minute stroll from our hotel to the ball game.

            Like the night before, the Jays fell behind 8-0. Unlike the night before, there was no miracle comeback. They fell 11-1 in front of a sell-out crowd, announced as the 100th sell-out in the short history of Great American Ballpark. There were lots of Jays fans, decked out like we were in Jays shirts and hats. Despite the scorching heat and lopsided result, it was a fun afternoon.

            We missed the rubber match Sunday afternoon because we were driving home, this time in better conditions, making it an 8-hour trip. I came home raving about Cincinnati, but the truth is I saw very little of the city. Most of our time was spent in much smaller and cozier Covington, Kentucky.

            Wherever we were, it was a great weekend. On the way home, with lots of time to talk and make plans, we decided we would have to hit the road again next year to see the Jays play somewhere else. We’ll have to wait for the schedule to come out before deciding where to go. It will be difficult to top this past weekend, however. It was a blast.

We saw dozens of amazing creatures at the Newport Aquarium, including sharks, jellyfish and a 90-year-old Galapagos turtle. We also enjoyed an up-close visit with some African black-foot penguins.

Empire strikes back... #MrLube files motion to avoid paying #BotchedOilChange judgment #LdnOnt #LameExcuses #ThrowingEmployeesUnderBus

Think back to when you were in school and how many excuses you heard or used for not getting your homework done on time.

Dogs seem to figure into the story more often than they should, but there’s also the spilled coffee routine and – most common in the classes I teach at Western – a printer that’s out of ink or just won’t print. Having wrestled with printers that wouldn’t speak to my computer or wouldn’t accept shiny new ink cartridges, I am sympathetic to the printer excuse. Maybe that’s why I hear it so often from my students.

In any case, my legal arch nemesis, Matt Rowswell, owner of the Mr. Lube franchise that botched my oil change in January, has filed a legal document essentially blaming everyone but himself for failing to respond to my lawsuit and having a judgment rendered against him.

As you can read about more fully in earlier postings below, Matt’s employee stripped my oil pan plug in January, rendering the pan useless. A new one was $600.

Last week, a judge ruled in my favour, awarding me a total of $932.46. That represents a refund of the original botched oil change, the cost of repairing my car and $215 in court costs. I promptly emailed Matt’s right-hand man, Mike Morrow, and asked for payment within seven days. That seems to have concentrated Matt’s mind because for the first time in this process, he responded to me – albeit indirectly.

Matt -- or Donald as he is now referred to in his motion -- had his paralegal flunky, Ronald Trachy of St. Thomas, come by my house Saturday. He dropped off a copy of his Notice to Set Aside Judgment and Permission to File a Defence.

That’s right. Nearly a month after I filed my claim and delivered it to the head office of his company, Cardoc Enterprise, Mighty Matt has sprung into action… and asked for a mulligan. He’s really sorry and all, but three weeks wasn’t enough time to respond to my lawsuit. So now that he’s been found guilty, he would really appreciate it if the court would bend the rules and let him file a defence. You can call him Matt. Or you can call him Donald. Just don’t call him late for court.

Of course, he actually had far more time to think about responding because on April 14, I spoke with his second-in-command, Mike Morrow, and indicated I would sue if they didn’t pay for the repair to my car. As unlikely as it seems, it might just be that Matt/Donald didn’t take any of this seriously until there was a judgment against him.

He has asked the court for a second chance because a “lack of communication within Caradoc Enterprise Inc.” meant the lawsuit “was not brought to my attention in a diligent manner, and that through no fault of my own I was unable to respond in a timely fashion.”

In other words, Matt/Donald is blaming his employees for not letting him know he was being sued. I find that amusing because on May 5 when I delivered the claim to his office, the store manager, Jerry DeLyzer, made a phone call before accepting it from me. He called either Matt/Donald or Matt/Donald’s second-in-command Mike. So it seems reasonable to assume he knew about the lawsuit that day.

Maybe the office isn’t run with the precision of a Fortune 500 organization. After all, the business itself is known as Cardoc Enterprise on its business cards and the business license displayed at its Oxford Street store, but it’s known as Caradoc Enterprise in the motion it just filed.

Having asked for his mulligan, he gets a hearing June 20 to plead his case. I will be on my way to Cincinnati to watch the Blue Jays play that weekend, so I can’t attend. I will, however, submit a motion suggesting his claim is hooey (sorry for the fancy legal terms) and asking the judge to tell Matt/Donald to quit stalling and pay me.

I hope he isn’t counting on his employees to remind him of the court date. They appear to be wholly unreliable. 

More on #BizLondon June cover story, Bela Booteek, #LdnOnt

The street is akin to the eye of a hurricane – at least as I understand it, having never been in a hurricane, eye or otherwise.

            Reportedly, when a hurricane makes land, the eye is eerily calm, sometimes prompting people to come out from shelter, assuming the worst is over. However, all around the eye, the storm continues to rage and damage everything in its path.

            Tiny Covent Market Place in downtown London is a little bit like that. All around it, the business of downtown goes on every day: Crowds flock to Budweiser Gardens, shoppers wander through Covent Garden Market and people come and go to offices, restaurants and bars.

            Yet many people miss this little street, a 200-metre elbow that wraps around the north end of Covent Garden Market connecting King and Talbot streets. There hasn’t always been much to see there. In fact, if you look at Google’s Street View of the north section of the street, last updated five years ago, it’s rather bleak.

            Today, however, that section of road has been revived, with the arrival of Hotel Metro, the restaurant Blu Duby (originally Braise) and the Market Lane walk-through to Dundas Street.

Two years ago Izabela Maloney arrived on the street and opened Bela Booteek, a women’s clothing and shoe store, modeled after two successful stores she operates in Aylmer of all places. Ask most people in London about Aylmer – 40 minutes southeast of here – and the first comment is likely to be about the Ontario Police College just outside town. There might be some vague notion the area is home to a large concentration of Mennonites and Amish, but that’s about it.

            No one thinks of Aylmer and fashion, but Maloney, a 43-year-old dynamo who came to Canada from Poland 13 years ago, has made her two Bela Booteek locations in Aylmer a destination shopping experience for women across Southwestern Ontario.

            Two years ago, she expanded to London and opened on Covent Market Lane. You can read all about her in this month’s Business London magazine.

            It took me a couple of weeks to track her down for an interview. She was willing but very busy. Evidently, she wears out the pavement between London and Aylmer, going back and forth to her stores every week. We eventually met at the Covent Market store, where I walked in to find four friendly staff members and an even more friendly Bichon Frise dog named Coco.

            The store has been successful, but can’t touch the volume of its Aylmer counterpart. After two years, it’s fair to say most women in London have never noticed the store, sitting as it does in the eye of the downtown hurricane.

            That might change in the coming months because in April, Maloney opened a second location in the former Ross Mayer store on Richmond Row, giving her about 100x more visibility. It’s a smaller store, but it most certainly will introduce the name Bela Booteek to more shoppers, many of whom will be shocked to discover there is a larger version of the store across from Covent Garden Market.

covent garden market

            Sometime in the next year or so, she would like to buy a building and consolidate her two London outlets into one, large and fabulous store. It will take some doing. She’s not going to move into a strip mall, just to find the space she needs.

            As you will understand if you read this month’s BL cover story, Maloney achieves the goals she sets for herself. So look for an amalgamated Bela Booteek somewhere downtown in the not too distant future. And if you’re ever in Aylmer…