Toronto Restaurant Owner Stunned To Be Closing Due To COVID-19 And Not Gentrification
By Scott Slute
Toronto - The Regent Park community is shocked today as beloved restaurant Lu’s Diner has officially shut its doors for good. The Parliament Street staple was forced to shut down today after they could no longer afford to pay rent due to the mandatory COVID-19 closures, and not because affluent white people have recently overwhelmed the area with luxury high-rise apartments causing disproportionate property value increases.
“I’m quite shocked it had to come to this, I was always anticipating gentrification to be the reason we shut our doors,” said owner Lu Stanis. “Once all those condos started popping up and white people began walking around the neighbourhood not looking frightened, I figured it wouldn’t be too long before we’d be bought out by a Boston Pizza. But I was certainly blindsided by this virus.”
Members of the community who just moved in eight months ago and continue working their six figure jobs from the comfort of their home cannot fathom why restaurants are experiencing so much difficulty paying their rent during this time.
“It’s a big lose to the neighbourhood,” said recent gentrifier Tania Claire, who never actually went inside Lu’s but did state she would frequently walk past it and regard that it looked “quite cute”.
Many other local business owners are fearful they too will suffer the same fate as Lu, being forced to close their doors without getting a big, fat check from developers.
“These past few weeks I’ve certainly seen a big drop off in exotic and imported discount rug sales,” said Larry Bahamn, owner of Larry’s Exotic and Imported Discount Rug Emporium, “I own my building, and if my business can survive the COVID pandemic, I’m hoping to sell the space so they can put up a condo building filled with vacant units that foreign investors will use to hide their wealth.”
The Mayor’s office announced today that, much like over-development and gentrification, they are also planning to do absolutely nothing to help businesses affected by this third wave of COVID-19.
Scott Slute is the Editor in Chief at The Toronto Harold