Markham businesses fed up with ‘out of control’ ServiceOntario lineups

‘We’ve lost so much revenue already and now nobody can come into our stores'

Yorkregion.com
August 19, 2020
Heidi Riedner

Sherwood Plaza tenants, struggling to recover from extended COVID-19 closures, are fed up with long lineups for ServiceOntario that they say are affecting their attempts to reopen.

“This has been going on for weeks,” says Calabria Bakery owner Yolanda Cuzzolino, referring to the roughly two dozen businesses being swamped by long lineups that start first thing in the morning for the ServiceOntario location that anchors the strip plaza in the east end of Markham.

“We’ve lost so much revenue already and now nobody can come into our stores.”

Cuzzolino says she has been sworn and yelled at and pretty much ignored when asking people to move away from her outside patio.

“It’s upsetting to have to go out all day, asking people to move away from the entrance, not block traffic or crowd customers. For the first few weeks, I was exhausted by the time I went home from dealing with all this,” she says.

“I have about 12 retirees who regularly come in for coffee, but they don’t now because they don’t want people looking at them all day and smoking weed.”

The situation is “out of control,” agrees John Egsgard, the owner of neighbouring tenant All Traffic Tickets, which has been in the Hwy. 7 and Galsworth Drive plaza for the past nine years.

“If you are a person who is paranoid about COVID, like most people are to varying degrees, would you come in here?” he asks, pointing to a throng of people crowded around his front door in a line of some 50 people, stretching all the way to the west end of the plaza.

“You may as well build a big wall across the front of the plaza.”

The disruption includes people “blabbing on their phones,” plopping themselves in storefront widows or lawn chairs and milling around in groups, many without wearing a mask, Egsgard says.

“They’re here all day because the line doesn’t move very fast.”

As of Aug. 4, all public and 90 per cent of ServiceOntario offices reopened, with more locations reopening and returning to regular hours of operation every day, according to Ontario's Ministry of Government and Consumer Services.

While the ministry urges people not to visit locations unless absolutely necessary, with most services like driver's licence renewals and plate stickers available online, many locations are still swamped with lineups.

“It may be a problem with other places, as well, but here it is an extreme,” says Egsgard, noting other locations in neighbouring Unionville and Scarborough were closed until fairly recently, with offices closing for an hour at lunch and by 2 p.m. for the day.

“I’ve been closed basically for five months. I’m still in business because of email, but I’m trying to run my business and I do get a significant portion from walk-ins, but not now,” says Egsgard.

Complaints and suggestions to Monopoly Property Management, which oversees the operation of the commercial property, to fix the problem have fallen on deaf ears, say Cuzzolino and Egsgard.

“They keep saying 'we’re coming tomorrow' when I call, but nothing,” agrees Lucky Convenience store owner Jigar Patel. “One person even hung up on me.”

Egsgard says he wants some value, and action, for the roughly $1,700 he pays in rent per month for his office space.

“I would at least like to be able to pick up the phone if I have a problem and get it solved,” he says.

Monopoly representative David Black says the management company is not ignoring tenant concerns.

“That is totally false,” he says, adding that the property manager has been on-site numerous times, a security guard was added to control the lineup and numerous meetings have taken place with ServiceOntario management.

"We're not ignoring it -- we take it very seriously and we are working on solutions," says Black.

Tape was put out on the sidewalk to keep people six feet apart and two more security guards will be added, says Black, but he added there isn't much recourse if people don’t co-operate.

“We can’t force people to wear masks."

Moving the lineup around the back of the building, as some tenants have suggested, isn’t an option due to liability issues, he says.

“It’s not safe. The waste bins and trucks go down there.“

He is also waiting to hear back from ServiceOntario if it will set up a system where people can register for an appointment and wait in their vehicles to be called in.

'We’ve made many suggestions, including extending their hours, and we're just waiting to hear back," says Black. "Other than shutting them down, which we can't and wouldn't do, I don't what else we can do. We’re between a rock and a hard place of trying to keep everybody happy, but we are trying to come up with a win-win for everybody."