Handout photo of Vancouver
A company that specializes in growing strawberries, lettuce and marijuana using new technologies was set last fall to take over a failed vertical-garden enterprise in a downtown Vancouver parkade.
But the city first demanded a promise that there would be no marijuana grown, and eventually declined to transfer the original lease of the failed company.
Now Clay Haeber, a man who was involved with the failed company, is suing the City of Vancouver for the $1.4-million he says he lost when the city wouldn't transfer the lease.
And the board chairman of Affinor Growers Inc., the new company that wanted to take over and create a demonstration project of new growing techniques, says Vancouver lost out on a bold idea.
"We were going to invest $2.5-million. We offered to pay all the rent in advance. There was no risk," said Nick Brusatore, the executive chair of Affinor.
Mr. Brusatore says he got his start in the new-agriculture business in 2000, after Canada amended its laws for medical marijuana, by producing home marijuana-growing kits that he called the "power-grow system."
He is frequently identified on his websites as the former chair of the applied research and innovation centre advisory committee at the B.C. Institute of Technology.
Affinor's website advertises the company like this: "Affinor Growers is focused on mass producing, high quality, in-demand produce and pharmacy-grade plants for global distribution."
The team is currently working towards becoming a grower of premier Medical Marihuana and set to produce other major cash crops such as Romaine Lettuce and Strawberries while waiting for Health Canada licenses and approvals."
The company also owns 49 per cent of a medical-marijuana growing operation and dispensary in Washington state called Good to Grow and says it is about to start a large new operation to grow organic strawberries in a vertical garden inside greenhouses in Quebec.
Mr. Brusatore, who is also affiliated with two similar companies called Vertical Designs Ltd. and Terrasphere, said he's just disappointed the city didn't see the benefit.
"I was sad when it failed. We need food on this planet."
He said he has now turned his attention to a research and development facility he already owns in Coquitlam, as well as the Quebec strawberry operation.
Mr. Brusatore didn't know anything about the lawsuit.
Mr. Haeber's suit against the city was launched March 3, six months after the city's representatives decided not to go through with transferring the lease.
The garden in the EasyPark parkade on Richards Street had generated a lot of media attention from the beginning.
At first, when Local Garden and Alterrus started growing plants using greenhouses and a unique vertical system in November, 2012, the coverage was glowing. Then it turned negative as the companies ran into financial problems and eventually declared bankruptcy.
The city's Vision Vancouver council was criticized for having agreed to lease its property to a dubious operation.
Mr. Haeber, who had been an investor with Alterrus, created a new company called Roof Top and bought the loans owing to VanCity Capital Corp. and became the owner of the vertical greenhouse in the parkade.
The lawsuit says Mr. Haeber made it clear, in all his negotiations with the city, that he would be selling his share to Affinor Growers and that there would be enough money to resume production.
"Further, Affinor confirmed in a letter to the city dated Aug. 11, 2014 that … [it] would at no time use the licensed premises to grow medical marijuana."
After Affinor issued a news release about the impending operation, the city asked for new terms in the contract, stipulating there would be no marijuana production and that any public statements would be provided to the city first for comment.
Then, on Sept. 25, city staff said it wouldn't be reassigning the lease after all.
Mr. Haeber is suing the city for the $1.4-million that Affinor was going to pay him for the shares in Roof Top and for the cost of storing the old vertical greenhouse operation.
The city's communications department said no one from the city would comment on the lawsuit because it's before the courts.
Frances Bula