Interesting Windsor Newspaper Articles

I do try very hard in TecumsehCityBlog not just to write mostly stories about political matters in this area as I did before. I do enjoy writing them to be direct but, at my stage of life, what happened to me and with what I want to do now, I want to write a lot more about other topics. However, every so often I find out about something that is going on here about which I want to comment. Please be advised though that all that I want to do is to express my comments about what I see going on and let you know what my perspective is.

Take this article that I am now writing about and posting on my website. It is really about my perspective on the matter. It is about the trip that Windsor Mayor, Drew Dilkens, took to Chicago recently. I have to admit that I had no idea what was going on. Believe it or not, I did not really know much about the alcohol facilities on the river and how the parties involved had changed. Let me explain now what I mean. 

Here is something that I saw on Google when the stories about this matter came out. I did a search on the words "dilkens canadian club:"

Now I do not know what you think, dear reader, but these are 2 stories from major Windsor media outlets. It just seemed to me that there were 2 conflicting comments of what happened at the meeting that our Mayor attended. In one story, there was hope that whatever was done in Chicago "saved" the property in Windsor. In the other story, we were advised that nothing had changed at all.  

I had to scratch my head and wonder why there was such a difference in what the reporters were telling us. How can the stories be so different? I could not figure it out so obviously I had to read the stories.  The Windsor Star Story can be found here:

"Craig Pearson, Windsor Star, February 13, 2017"

The CBC story can be found here: "CBC News, February 13, 2017"

Before I explain to you more about the stories, I was confused as to why the Mayor went to Chicago at all. As the Windsor Star wrote, he went there to meet with executives from Beam Suntory. It is the Company  

"that owns Canadian Club, [which] announced last week that it intends to close the brand centre for tours March 31, and for booked events Dec. 31."  

Yet, I also saw this:  

"Meanwhile, Pernod Ricard — the company that owns the Hiram Walker distillery and leases the Canadian Club Brand Centre to Beam Suntory — does not yet know what it will do with the building if it closes to the public."   

It appears as if Beam Suntory is just a Tenant of the building owned by Pernod Ricard. Was the tenancy ending soon perhaps? Accordingly, I was not sure why these changes were being done at the building and who was doing it--- the Landlord or the Tenant --- and why. 

I thought that the Landlord might be the owner of all of the possessions inside the building and not the Tenant. If true, I just did not understand what was happening. Frankly, who cares what the Tenant does if that is the case. The Landlord has the ability to keep the building going even if the Tenant pulls out although it cannot have the name "Canadian Club" on it I think.   

Consider this however. Could it be that the Tenant owns the assets in the building? After all, I saw this:  

"the company [Beam Suntory] does not intend to move the brand centre’s multi-million art and artifact collection — including numerous Group of Seven paintings — out of the city. 

“Their goal is not to take that stuff out of Windsor,” he said. “They recognize there’s a strong connection to our local history.”  

Do you see how complicated it is becoming to me? I could not figure out who owned all of the interior assets. Moreover, it did not seem that Beam Suntory had any idea what to do with the assets in the building if it owned them. Perhaps they wanted the City to find new space for them. 

Now let's go back to the CBC story. I am not sure that CBC knew a lot about ownership. It did not talk about Pernard Ricard in its story and wrote: 

"Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens flew to Chicago to meet with owners of the Canadian Club Heritage Building." 

The Windsor Star story after all told us that Pernod Ricard leased that building to Beam Suntory. So did The Mayor go to see the wrong Party i.e. the Tenant not the Owner? If so, why didn't the Mayor understand what was going on?  Not only him, but Canadian Member of Parliament, Windsor West MP Brian Masse who accompanied him. I was not sure why he should be attending anyway. What role did he think he was playing especially visiting with someone who was not the Landlord? 

I have to admit that I was confused when I read this in the CBC story: 

"During his meeting, Dilkens explained the city's challenge of coming up with money to help save the building. Instead, he said council might be able to find other ways to make the centre more profitable, such as promotions and partnerships with Tourism Windsor-Essex. 

"I actually told them it would be near impossible for me to go to council and ask for a blank cheque," Dilkens said. "There's got to be other ways for us to help them." 

How could the Mayor help them, and why would they need his help, if they were not the building owner but just a mere Tenant? Had the Owner made a decision which was forcing them out at year-end? Given what was going on in Windsor financially, could the Mayor find any money to help someone out even if he wanted to? Would Council go along with him? I did not know. 

I am sure that we will be seeing a lot more stories about this matter before it is resolved one way or the other that hopefully will clear up my confusion.