By Pepper Parr
February 22, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
Your city council will meet Monday evening to cast the 2015 budget in stone.
There will be a number of delegations; three that we have been made aware of should be interesting.
Katherine Henshell will be delegating about her concern over Aldershot’s Solid Gold Strip Club on Plains Road, the busiest street in Aldershot.
The Club borders on two residential neighbourhoods;
It has 6 – 8 hotel room doors which open on Plains Road and across from a residential community;
It has the largest square footage of any retail service business in Aldershot west of Francis Street;
It is located within 550 metres of Aldershot High School;
Children from grades 7 – 12 walk past the strip club to and from school everyday;
Children from grades 7 – 12 walk past the strip club to go to Wendy’s for lunch every day.
Adult entertainment – just a little too public for some.
Henshall adds that it shouldn’t not have to be said about the degradation of women and other issues which are additionally appalling about the operation of a strip club.
Henshell once played as goalie – she now plays defense. Practices law and keeps a close eye on public morality.
Henshell said she was “ was driving home from Pizza Pizza (at King Road) one Friday evening with our family’s dinner and I noticed a few young children in girls’ soccer uniforms outside the Dairy Queen. It was a nice sight to see. Then I drive down Plains Road past the Strip Club and 3 – 4 strippers (wearing stripper’s outfits) were standing on the sidewalk on Plains Road waving the cars into the parking lot in broad daylight.
She continues: “I was immediately disturbed that those young soccer players might take the same route home and drive past the strippers as well. This shouldn’t happen in Burlington (or anywhere for that matter). (I telephoned the Halton Regional Police when I returned home and they indicated that they would look into it as they had also received other calls.”
Back in 2008 Councillor Craven said the owner of adult entertainment club Solid Gold wanted to move from Plains Road West but needs help finding a new location.
City had unanimously passed its new adult entertainment bylaw — the third version to come before politicians in more than a year — that relegates strip clubs to the city’s east side, in industrial spots. The bylaw replaced a two-decade old regulation considered long out of date.
Local entertainment talent – at the Solid Gold
“His exact words to me were”, said Craven “help me find a new location,” adding he will forward him a copy of the new bylaw. “I will encourage him at every opportunity to find an appropriate location in the city of Burlington.”
Craven said he is particularly happy with the passing of the bylaw — which he has said took too long to occur — as it brings fairness to the city.
This could be a lively discussion.
Tom Muir will be delegating about the Townsend Ave reconstruction and storm water system. The item was apparently approved in the Capital budget which surprised Muir who said; “ I have been under a misunderstanding about the Budget process. I have always thought that projects were not approved and funded until the year they have met all approval processes and are ready to construct. For the Townsend project, at two PICs, one in 2013 and another in 2014, residents were told that the project was not proceeding in those years because there was no money available.”
“Common to, and running through the substance of all these issues and concerns are matters of due process, transparency and accountability, answerability, and respect for citizen rights to open government and information.
“Faced with this uncertainty on a way forward, and rather than remain silent, I want to provide some comments that reflect my personal experience with the city and Ward 1 Councilor approach to the Townsend Ave. reconstruction and storm sewer project. These comments are the basis for my subject request submission to revisit the project plan.”
Townsend Avenue runs parallel to and south of Plains road, the main artery through Aldershot. As such it has become the street traffic migrates to when the flow along Plains road gets thick.
Interestingly both Henshell and Muir are from Ward 1; Muir has been a thorn in the side of ward 1 Councillor Rick Craven; Henshell ran against Craven in the 2014 municipal election. Disclosure: Henshell represents the Gazette in the Libel matter with the Air Park.
Delegations at city council get five minutes to say their piece. On occasion there are questions from members of Council, more often than not there is a less than polite silence.
Added to the delegation mix on Monday will be whatever Anne Marsden has to say. Mrs. Marsden was a candidate for the office of Mayor in the October election. She has recently filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission over the limitations the city has imposed on her movements at city hall.
Marsden has a serious beef with the city administration over the limitations they have imposed on what she can do when she is at city hall. She has been told that she must report to a “single point of contact” at city hall who monitors her every move.
There appears to be a document that is known as the “Marsden protocol” which came out of either the City Solicitors office or from the City Clerk.
Anne Marsden has filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal – wants the “Marsden Protocol” removed.
There is a serious lack of clarity on just what the document says – all we know is that it does exist. The Marsden’s are being rather cagey about the letter they received from the City Solicitor and have said they are not prepared to release the document at this point in time.
Anne Marsden has basically been banned from the Regional offices in Oakville. She can be difficult and at times strident. However there have been a number of occasions when Anne Marsden has been dead right.
Being a difficult person to work with is not reason enough to do what the city of Burlington is doing Anne Marsden. Her complaint to the Human Right Tribunal is going to be expensive for the city; what will the city do should the Tribunal side with Marsden? What will that do to our best mid-sized city in Canada?
Anne Marsden speaks out. Her complaints are at times unreasonable and they could be put forward in a different style,but she is a citizen and she deserves to be listened to – that is what we elected the seven people on Council to do – to listen to the voters and then use whatever wisdom they have to make decisions that are for the benefit of the people.
Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran Pastor, said in a poem he wrote in 1946, referring to the way the world has reacted to the persecution of Jews by the Germans in the Second World War:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Anne Marsden’s speaking out is protecting the right you have to speak out. It is not something you want to lose.
Monday should be quite an evening.
Pepper, with all due respect, comparing the situation between the city and Anne Marsden to the way the world reacted to the persecution of Jews by the Germans in the Second World War is not only a tad overdramatic, it’s also pretty offensive.
I listened to Anne Marsden during the 2014 election, like any politician sitting in opposition, she made critical comments about the city, the mayor, city council, etc. and that is really easy to do. When it came time to offer anything in the way of a vision or provide examples of tangible ideas and solutions on how to improve the city, there was nothing substantive.
I am all in favour of someone speaking out and holding our leaders accountable, but I for one do not need Mrs. Marsden to do that on my behalf.
Burlington is pretty good city, as reflected in its rating as “best mid-sized city in Canada” and we have a lot to be proud of. Does it have issues? Of course it does, it’s far from being perfect and we need citizens who are engaged in wanting to help find solutions. But if Mrs. Marsden makes a career railing against every little thing being done at City Hall, it certainly begs the question: “Anne if things are so terrible here in Burlington, why do you live here?”
It would be interesting to know what were the results of the police looking into the matter of strippers waving over customers on Plains Rd was. I have to revise my initial thoughts on the comparison of pizza advertisers versus strippers. While I still think having strippers outside the club hailing cars is a poor business decision, both pizza places and the strip club are legal businesses so I doubt if Solid Gold broke any laws. As for wearing stripper clothes it would depend on how extreme. some of the clothes teenage girls wear could almost be compared. A few years ago I was at a function at the Grand Olympia in Stoney Creek. There was a formal high school function down the hall. Some of the girls wore tight short dresses that barely covered their crotch. About a year ago I dropped into Shoeless Joe’s after a book buying trip for a beer. I couldn’t help noticing the “uniforms” worn by the female wait staff. All were in black, which is not unusual. Their tops were all very low-cut. They all wore very short skirts, most barely covering their crotches and knee high boots. I have seen similar outfits on wait staff at other establishments. These are not adult only places. What about bikini’s at public pools.
Tenni, I don’t think comparing pizza advertisers with strippers is a good comparison. I do agree with Bryce Lee that Katherine Henshell is being a bit of a prude. As for Solid Gold, it has been there for years and I doubt it is going anywhere anytime soon. Anytime I have passed by the parking lot and business look totally dead. Of course there is a parking lot in back. I have never seen strippers out front but then I may just have passed at the wrong time. I’m actually rather surprised to hear of this. I agree it’s not appropriate and I’m surprised the owner would wish to use this method of advertising considering he would not want to encourage negative public opinions. As for the young soccer players, an age is not given. Unless they are very young does Ms. Henshell really think they don’t know what a stripper is. As for the degradation of women, in the photo above I see 2 males. Women do go to see male strippers and apparently get much more rowdy than men.
I was under the impression that this meeting was about the budget. What does Solid Gold have to do with the budget unless Ms. Henshell is proposing we spend taxpayers dollars to force this legal business out.
Methinks Katherine Henshell is being a prude in the matter of Solid Gold.
As to Anne Marsden, she has been identified as a sh*t disturber. Hence if she appears at City Hall she is to be silenced. Problem is, City Hall is not a private company, hence the outcome could be very interesting.
As I indicated in my submission notes to Committee and Council, I cannot delegate personally as I am out of the country for the budget deliberations and approvals.
I thought I made this clear in my submission message.
I won’t be there!
It will be interesting to see what Henshall has to say about the strip club. If she is upset about exotic dancers waving to flag in patrons, will she also ask that the Pizza place that has young children(teens actually) waving large signs to get people to come in to the Pizza places ? (along Fairview (near Ikea mall) and up on Brant near Middle Road)
I think that she is using children as a defence to enforce her morality on a legal business. I await what is reported.