By RICARDO WELLS

THE owner of an East Bay Street Plaza store is refusing to stop operations from what is being described as a “horrendous eyesore” despite requests by property managers and other tenants.

Neighbouring tenants claim that the “wooden stall” and tarpaulined extension built and operated by Keith Pratt, the proprietor of the Cosmo Fashions store, is not only in defiance of officials at the plaza but a deterrence to customers.

According to sources, earlier this year Mr Pratt began construction of the wooden stall on the property, which he has owned “for quite some time” and fronts onto East Bay Street, a busy thoroughfare, just west of the plaza. The area that houses the stall is separate from the lot he holds at the plaza and that is where they say “is where the already existing problem boiled over”.

Larry Albury, East Bay Street Plaza’s property manager, told The Tribune that there were a number of issues raised by the plaza’s ownership group through the years over the way Mr Pratt has kept his property and the front of his unit. “He has owned the unit for 20 years,” he said. “He purchased it a while back from the same ownership group, but it was a generation ago. He owned the property immediately west of the unit and as far as I can recall has kept it in ruin.

“There were two derelict vehicles parked in front of the store for a very long time. We asked him a couple of times to have the vehicles removed; he refused. We got environmental health involved and after a couple of tries they got him to remove the cars.”

A Department of Environmental Health official confirmed that a complaint was filed on August 5. According to their records officers were deployed to the property and orders to “clean up the property’s appearance” were given. “Initially the matter was referred to us because of the garbage that was allowed to accumulate on the property,” the official said. “We asked the tenant to remove the trash and two derelict vehicles. As a result of this, we realised that the structure itself had some coding violation and the matter was then passed on to the Ministry of Works’ Building Control Unit.”

Mr Albury said: “They told us the issue of the structure was a Ministry of Works issue and they offered to point us in the right direction to get it resolved. A number of complaints have already been lodged concerning the structure and setup, but we are still waiting for it to be dealt with. The issue is the way it looks. Work is being done to improve the overall look of the property, but that unit always seems to stand out because of the structure. It is destroying the look of the overall property.

“We have tried on a number of occasions to buy his unit, but he is kind of hard to deal with. He doesn’t really communicate and is really difficult to get along with. We have tried everything to resolve this issue and put this behind us,” Mr Albury added. The Tribune spoke with other tenants, who claim that the unit and its owner are ruining the plaza. “I don’t know the tenant personally, but I have been told that the issue goes very deep,” one said. “He is the owner of the grassy area, so that is the reason it is there. But he has been told by the owner of the shopping centre that the structure can’t remain as is.”

Another said: “It looks tacky. I don’t care who gave him the okay, the way it looks is a simple no, no. The plywood, the tarps; that is simple not a good look for the entire complex.”

Mr Pratt refused to comment on the matter despite several attempts by The Tribune to speak to him. The process involving the Ministry of Works is likely to take some time, The Tribune understands.