An entrepreneur who wanted to keep operating a Finnish sauna on Toronto’s waterfront this summer says he’s been put out of business for now by an unfair ruling from the Toronto Port Authority.
“It leaves us releasing the 10 staff we had, it leaves us parking the sauna without a place to operate it until the fall,” said Mat Slaman, who, together with business partners, opened the Löyly Floating Sauna at the Rees Street slip on Queens Quay West in December.
“Part of the long-term vision was getting a summer location.”
Slaman, who has taken sole ownership of the business and rebranded it Saunoa, said operating a business on the waterfront means navigating myriad organizations in charge of different parts of the harbour, some of them with competing priorities.
“It is absolutely convoluted,” said Slaman.
“The lack of co-ordination is hindering economic activity.”
Overlapping municipal, provincial, federal and agency jurisdictions make doing business on the waterfront complex. One agency or level of government may have jurisdiction over a dockwall, while another oversees the water in front of the dockwall. There are about a dozen different agencies with a role to play on the waterfront.
The berth at Rees Street that Slaman used throughout the winter is unavailable from April to early fall due to Toronto Harbour Nautical Centre programming.
Slaman wanted permission from the Toronto Port Authority and CreateTO to operate from a mooring location at 161 Cherry St., which Slaman says would have been ideal, because it’s near the new Biidaasige Park in the Port Lands, was available immediately, and met the power requirements for his business.
CreateTO, the real estate agency for the city of Toronto, has jurisdiction over the land at the Cherry Street location. The Toronto Port Authority has jurisdiction over the water lot.
Following a positive meeting on March 6 with representatives from the TPA and CreateTO, Slaman thought he had everything locked down.
In an email sent that same day, and obtained by the Star, CreateTO official Bryan Bowen agreed that “the most logical location appears to be the Dock Shoppe’s former berth,” which was the spot Slaman wanted.
“Hoping we can find a path to welcoming this new waterfront activity to the Port Lands,” wrote Bowen, CreateTO’s director of Port Lands Asset Management, in the email, sent to Slaman and a senior executive at the Toronto Port Authority.
Bowen’s role at CreateTO is to lead initiatives to maximize the potential of Toronto’s waterfront and the expanding Port Lands.
Then in April, Slaman was informed by the TPA that the location was considered industrial, and not compatible with a sauna business.
Slaman says a retailer called The Dock Shoppe previously occupied the spot, and there are two unused boats moored nearby.
TPA spokesperson Claire Pfeiffer said the boats moored near the spot are commercial-industrial vessels and The Dock Shoppe moved to the Outer Harbour Marina.
The Dock Shoppe specializes in boating needs, from ropes to anchors, electronics and hardware.
“The Dock Shoppe is a commercial business serving the boating industry — it is not analogous to a recreational sauna business,” said Pfeiffer.
She said using the spot for a sauna “was determined to be incompatible due to the area’s industrial and marine shipping environment,” adding that it posed safety concerns.
Scott Pennington, vice-president, Port Lands management for CreateTO, told the Star that while the organization is always looking for uses that build the Port Lands’ economic and cultural vitality, proposals related to water or the marine shipping environment require “appropriate permissions.”
Slaman said he was forced to consider the Outer Harbour Marina after he was shut out of 161 Cherry, but the cost of upgrading the site to provide enough power for his business was $100,000. The site is also a private community, requiring patrons to enter via key card, which limits access, he said.
The sauna is being stored at the Toronto Islands, pending a solution to the problem, or until Slaman can return to his berth at Rees Street in November.
“It’s extremely convoluted, next to impossible, to start operating any business on Toronto’s waterfront,” said Slaman.
