Mothers Win Hide and Skin War
Ultimatum to be given factories
The Gazette Tuesday, August 1, 1961
By Bruce Garvey
The angry housewives of Forfar Street went to war with the hide and skin business last week – and won.
The women in Point St. Charles claimed the hide and skin warehouses made their homes fly-ridden and the whole district rat infested and "stinking."
Executive Committee Chairman Lucien Saulnier, who pitched in on the side of the housewives once he smelled the none-too-fragrant district air, said yesterday the health department now is looking for a way to carry out the ultimatum within existing health regulations.
"If it isn't possible, we'll soon make an amendment," he promised.
Playground Enlargement is planned
Eventually the two warehouses at Forfar and Riverside Sts. And university and St. Paul Sts. will be expropriated to enlarge children's playgrounds. The Forfar St. Building adjoins a playground
and the warehouse on University is just the width of St. Paul St. from another.
But although the women in Point St. Charles are smiling at their success, those indelicate odours are still around.
The hopping mad housewives decided to do something about the smell that "makes life unbearable" when Mayor Jean Drapeau and executive committee members toured the district on a hot and sticky afternoon.They ran out to besiege the mayor and lodged their complaints in no uncertain terms.
Mrs. Alexander Allardyce and Mrs. Stella Santucci, mother of eight, whose home face the warehouses across Forfar St., were among the crowd of 50 who angrily demanded action from the city officials.
"The smell is terrible – so bad that you can't keep the windows open at night, " said Mrs. Allardyce.
"I just don't know how men can work there and go home to their families with that smell. Our homes are full of big flies all through he summer and the smell doesn't go away in the winter."
There are house behind and opposite the warehouse and a narrow alley separates it from the playground."Blood runs out into the street and people can't pass and it stinks badly," complained Playground Caretaker Arthur Diorio. "Americans hold their noses when they pass over Victoria Bridge."
"It's bad for the children, too," he added.
More than 100 suntanned youngsters romp around the playground all day, every day.
Across the canal, complaints about the University St. building and its piles of hides and waste are the same.
In a neighbouring office, Mrs. Ivy Hand calls it "wicked, horrible, awful.""There's blood in the street and the smell is wicked. These places should be out of town," she said.
Pleading anonymity, the superintendent of the second playground agreed: ":It gets darned bad."Do the owners, Martin and Stewart Ltd., consider their warehouse odours offensive?
"Absolutely not," said an indignant employee.
But from the President's office comes: "No comment."
One thing is certain, something smells in Point St. Charles- and you don't have to have been reared in a rose garden to notice it.