Boulevard business owners condemn lack of respect

by Larry Austin
Niagara Wheatfield Tribune, December 28, 2006

On-going road work on Niagara Falls Boulevard reminded one business owner of when Buffalo put in the rapid transit rail line in downtown. By the time the work was done, all the businesses had gone belly up, and there was no need for a rapid transit line there anymore.

The state Department of Transportation held a public forum Dec. 21 at the Wheatfield Community Center and heard from business owners on the boulevard about the impact construction has had.

Though many acknowledged the work will improve the boulevard, in the meantime the workers are killing business.

Tom Hurley of the DOT stressed the need for greater communication between the state and the area businesses. Any solution to the problem comes too little, too late for Michele Reimer, owner of the Subway sandwich shop on the boulevard. She went out of business less than a year after opening, she said. (Reimer has said goodbye to her customers in an advertisement on page 3 of the Tribune.)

“Who’s going to take care of me? I think you guys are more concerned about the turtles in the water than about the people that are trying to run a business,” Reimer said, referring to environmental work that went along with the project.

Reimer’s last day was Dec. 9. She attributes all of it to the work because customers had no place to park, even in their drive-thru. She described construction workers parking their work vehicles in her drive-thru, preventing her from opening.

“Sometimes cars couldn’t even get around to the drive-thru. When you have the CATs in the drive-thru, you have cement trucks, you have dump trucks, and you have employee trucks, how is anybody going to get in?” she said.

“I’m now out of business,” she said.

“I think it’s a lack of consideration from the state,” Reimer said. “I’ve lost a whole year. I think this is very wrong.”

The forum was moderated by State Sen. George Maziarz and attended by members of the DOT and a representative of CATCO.

Natalie Mantell of Flowers by Diane said she was left out of the loop when it came to similar public forums held in the past. Accommodations were made for the businesses along the boulevard, she said, “but when it came to the one business on Schultz Road, I had total access shut off.”

Florists depend on business on Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day to make it through the year she said.

“The bridge was taken out on Nov. 13, and I had no sales for Thanksgiving,” she noted, adding that business is down for her by 65 percent. “Last Friday alone I lost $1,500 on one day,”

“I’m day by day,” she said. “This should be the busiest time of year for me, and I am day by day.”

Dan Maxwell, who owns Curves for Women, said he typically sees more than 40 exercisers at his business. The day of the meeting, he saw just four over the same time period.

Noting that the work on the boulevard will continue unimpeded, Maxwell said: “What I’d like to know is if you’re going to allow us to continue our business unimpeded.”

“Nobody here doubts one bit that when this project’s done everything’s going to be great,” Maxwell said. “But the bottom line is the guys doing the work have no respect at all for any of the people that have laid their life out there trying to conduct a business.”

Maxwell, whose business in located at Meadowbrook Square, said he’s seen workers close access and remove road signs from businesses.

“So nobody has any idea how to get in any of our businesses,” Maxwell said. Even worse, he said, he’s seen workers carry his sign “like it was a coffin” and dumped in the mud.

“How are we going ever be in business if the guys doing the work can’t give us enough respect to not chase our customers away?” Maxwell said.

Hurley said the contractor was unaware of complaints, but that the DOT will install signs at entrances of driveways and make sure they are maintained.