The Case of the Missing Pepperbanner

Everyone has been asking what happened to our pepper banner, so, we’ve decided it might be helpful to let you all in on the secret.

Last November, in the middle of the night, someone set fire to our neighbours building. Since that day, the building next to ours is an eyesore and has been since the fire. Greg got so sick of the mess that he actually called City Hall and complained that there IS broken glass all over the sidewalk and that the place could be cleaned up. The next day, the city sent over workers to sweep the sidewalk.

This is the result of their work…

That night we were sitting on our balcony (wave hello, as you drive by) having our drinks, and noticed that everyone was STILL looking at the burnt out hulk next door. So, we pulled the 12″ banner out of mothballs and hung it from the overhang. It looked great and instantly hid any of the “damage” or “ugliness” that is the “overhang” above our porch as well as INSTANTLY drawing attention from the burnt out hulk, back to our building. It was working very well until that Friday afternoon, when, shortly after lunch, we received a phone call from Rigaud City Hall telling us that our new pepper banner, was illegal and we were required to remove it before Monday or the town was going to fine us $500 plus costs.

Greg and I been operating Brooks Pepperfire Foods since 2004 and we have been a very active participant in the growth of Rigaud, and we actively drive international tourist traffic to this town regularly. So, we decided that we’d be wiser to take the banner down first, and THEN ask questions. We love this town. Hence the original vaguebook post, “Say goodbye to the peppers”.

On Monday morning, Greg visited City Hall. It seems that someone dislikes unique and colourful banners on buildings in our town, because they called city Hall and reported the banner as illegal. Seems this complainant knew something we didn’t, about town by-laws for small businesses, because, as we, learned, you’re NOT allowed to do anything to promote your business in Rigaud unless and until you have received prior permission from the town. Of course, we’d already gone down that road, because Greg had requested permission to install beautiful red metal roofing material to the overhang and we discovered that the roofing metal we’d purchased wasn’t up to period.

Oh, wait. Did I happen to mention that? Apparently, someone at City Hall has decided that MY falling down, broche ‡ foin, makeshift plywood, early 20th century building, half-built from 19th century barn boards with windows whose headers were installed on the bottom, is a, get this, “potential” heritage building. (Whoever declared that one hasn’t seen the repairs and renovating that we have had to do and are still doing.) Especially because the “potential” could easily DOUBLE the value of our property. The declaration of our building as a potential heritage building was even more hilarious when we learned that the REASON our building was chosen is because of the period brick building that had been done using contrasting black bricks. (They think that the bricks that our Artist friend, Michael Cartwright painted, are “period”. They might have asked?

Interestingly, I think someone at City Hall likes us, because, unlike my friend Marni who owns a shop a couple of towns over (Vaudreuil), we got a phone call warning us what was going to happen on Monday if we didn’t take the banner down. She got a registered letter, and a 48 hour warning.

Greg was quite upset, as was I. It’s not been easy feeling welcome in town, it never has been, until most recently, this town was anything BUT unique and colourful, it was cold and unwelcoming for a very long time. Our clients used to joke that they were glad we opened up shop in Rigaud, because the strip club couldn’t take the heat — They closed down (finally) shortly after we bought our building.

The most upsetting bit was Greg’s reception when he went to city hall to get the rules. Greg is a pretty cooperative kinda guy, he’s a stand up citizen and he never says “no” when someone asks for his support, so his reception at City Hall seemed excessively adversarial, as a result of a couple of very casual comments about sign permits and fire marshals, certainly, the sort that one could honestly explain in a court of law as accidental and unintentional, but there they were and when Greg told me about it, it really really bothered me, as well. I knew my anger was getting the better of me as I called our Real Estate Agent, Pierre at Remax, to ask if he had a giant FOR SALE sign. Apparently, the town of Rigaud has LIMITATIONS on the size of “for sale” sign you can put on your building, too, so we put the kabash on that idea right away. Besides, we don’t want to sell. We have a lot of customers and friends here. I hate frustrating situations.

Thankfully, our business does not depend on dealing with parochial people who live eat and breathe Rigaud “building codes” or “signage laws” and whatnot and so, cooler heads (read Greg’s) prevailed, because Greg took the banner down and is in the process of figuring out how to work WITHIN the “rules” they gave him.

It’s fascinating to us that the fellow who represented the town in Greg’s discussions made it quite clear that we are not allowed to “promote our business in Rigaud” while also making it quite clear that OUR “colourful and unique” is NOT what the Town of Rigaud meant when they chose THAT as their motto for the summer season. So if anyone has ideas, we’re open to hearing them. So far, I’m tempted to erase EVERY trace of Peppermaster from the front of this building and turn it back into the boring nondescript eyesore ramshackle falling down building it was when we bought it. I wonder how the town would feel if we painted over the specatucular “architechtural feature” of Mr. Cartwright’s painted bricks?

We have been at this Pepper pushing business a long time, Greg way longer than I, and we’re not about to just stop, if we don’t have to. Rigaud can play its games with town residents and keep businesses from “promoting their business” on the main street and the town will remain damp and boring, unlike all the towns that are described as “cute” or “quaint” or even “colourful and unique”. We didn’t choose Rigaud for the business that the main street would give us, we chose it because it was an empty hulk of a building that had an apartment in which we could install four kids after a house fire that had us living at the no-tell motel.

I’m feeling less angry although, I still feel petty. Regardless, I will NOT allow that pettiness to negatively effect everything we have built here in Rigaud. Instead, we’re going to get up tomorrow morning and just keep making the consistently excellent food products that all of our customers have come to rely upon.

Those peppers are gone, but something way more impressive will appear. Most people in Rigaud and at City Hall know that we are an International Tourist Destination and love us for it. We have chosen an interesting town in which to do business, unique and colourful.

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