New information on the 20-year lease signed between the City of Toronto and the owners of the Boardwalk Cafe indicates that the controversial deal may not be as disadvantageous to the city as originally thought.
The deal between the city and Tuggs Incorporated has become a lightning rod in the mayoralty race and local ward politics in Beaches-East York.
Earlier this year, the city and Tuggs finally signed a deal to sign a new lease for the beach-front restaurant cafe, after having spent four years in on-again, off-again negotiations.
As council was debating the deal in the spring, it appeared as though the new deal was giving Tuggs a $1-million break in the rent it would be paying the city for the land it occupied, and the right to control sponsorship along the well-used stretch of Toronto's waterfront east of Woodbine Avenue.
Since then, mayoralty candidate Rob Ford has alleged the deal is corrupt and Ward 32 Beaches-East York council candidate Bruce Baker considers the process "flawed" - pointing fingers at Ward 32 incumbent councillor Sandra Bussin.
However, a report from Deputy Manager Sue Cork delivered to councillors last week paints a more detailed - and more nuanced picture of the deal.
According to the report, the $1-million reduction was not a reduction on what Tuggs had been paying the city over the years - rather, it was the relaxation of a more stringent plan for sponsorships that the city and Tuggs were at one point contemplating.
The briefing note reads, "the difference of $1,000,000 between the two proposals is not money that the city lost as it is money that was only proposed by Tuggs. The actual comparison should be made to what Tuggs actually paid over the original 20-year term and what Tuggs will pay over the new 20-year agreement. The city actually gains $2,184,400 in fees."
Bussin had originally proposed entering into sole source negotiations with Tuggs and the Foulidis family, which owns the company and originally built the restaurant.
While she hadn't involved herself in any of the most recent decision-making, she said the briefing note vindicates the decision.
"It has been misunderstood from the beginning," she said. "It's been totally misrepresented."
George Foulidis, owner of Tuggs and the Boardwalk Cafe, confirmed Wednesday, Sept. 1, that he is suing Ward 32 council candidate Baker for libel over the controversy, and said the report shows that his dealings with the city were on the up-and-up.
He said the original sponsorship plan that he'd proposed - which would have netted the city more money - fell apart because the city insisted on too much control of events that he might sell sponsorship to. He had originally agreed to pay a significantly higher base fee for sponsorships, and in the new deal cut that base fee in half.
"If the city let me do business the way I wanted to do business I would have been more than happy to pay minimus, but the city came back and said George, I can't let you do those things," he said. "Based on that I didn't want to guarantee anything, but to make it look good I said I would do it. And now everybody believes the city is getting a million dollars less than they were getting."
In an interview Wednesday with The Mirror, Baker confirmed that he will be defending himself against the libel suit.
He said he did not libel Tuggs.
"I did oppose the 20-year extension," Baker said. "I opposed that because the process was flawed. I went to the auditor general of the City of Toronto and said the process is flawed. This was never about Tuggs, it was about the process the City of Toronto took to give a monopoly of 20 years in the Eastern Beaches."