Fire safety worker suspended in wake of fiasco over terrace closures on Grand Prix weekend

A fire safety worker with the city’s fire department has been suspended following the controversial closing of restaurant terraces on Peel Street during Grand Prix weekend in Montreal.

“The situation was concerning so the city manager’s office decided to launch an internal, administrative investigation to shed light on what happened because … what happened was unacceptable and, so far, the city manager’s office decided to suspend one employee,” said Luc Rabouin, the president of the mayor’s executive committee, during a press conference on Monday afternoon. 

He confirmed that the worker who was suspended is from the Service de sécurité incendie de Montréal (SIM), but did not reveal further details. 

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante asked for a post-mortem to be carried out after the incident, which led to multiple terraces being shut down during one of the busiest nights of the year for bars. The restaurant owners were told they were not up to code. 

Ferreira Café was one of the establishments that was targeted and owner Sandra Ferreira posted a tear-filled message about the ordeal on her Instagram after evacuating her packed terrace. Her video has racked up more than two million views. 

In an interview with CTV News on Monday, she said she was told to kick customers off her terrace

“I was so angry and that’s why I started crying. And I started crying in front of the gentlemen when they asked me to evacuate,” she told CTV News on Monday. 

Rabouin said ensuring compliance with fire safety regulations is important, but that he was concerned about the “heavy-handed” approach the fire safety workers took when paying the restaurants a visit on Friday night.

“We cannot decide the operations of the SIM as elected officials but sincerely I think that there are other ways to be sure that we are able to enforce [the rules] and coming during the rush hour doesn’t seem to be the best idea,” he said. 

Luc Rabouin, the president of the mayor’s executive committee, speaks to reporters on Monday, June 10, 2024. (CTV News)

“It’s a shock for them, it’s a shock for us,” he added, in reference to how the situation was handled. “We find that it’s unacceptable.”

More to come.