Whose Alley Is It, Anyway?

Ted Bonner, the landlord who has blocked access to a back alley used for deliveries by Elm Street merchants, has indicated he is not going to reconsider his decision. Instead, he is offering courtesy parking to the merchants and their employees.

"He hand delivered a letter last night," Rick Franco, owner of Franco's Wine Merchants said.   "It sounds like the Trojan Horse.  He's offering free parking up to a point and then from there there's going to be some charge for it.  Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.  There's no stipulation of what the charges are going to be when he begins to charge, like October or something.  That does not resolve the issue of traffic flow."

First Selectman Jeb Walker and Selectman Rob Mallozzi met with Bonner on Thursday morning to see if they could help negotiate an amicable solution to the problem.

"This is not a public issue," Mallozzi said, "but we want to promote harmony among people in the community. We want to see resolution to these types of conflicts."

Bonner recently took control of the parking lot off Cherry Street, and placed security guards at the entrance to deny access to trucks that had been using the lot as a cut-through to the alley where they made their deliveries.

"While this has always been a monitored lot, we recently have had to take a much more aggressive stance about trucks barreling through the Bank of America lot," Bonner said in an email to Patch. He had not returned phone calls before this article was posted.

"He talked a lot about safety issues," Mallozzi said, "I said, as long as I've lived in this town, I've never seen safety issues (there)… As a fireman we would never put a  truck back there.  It's too tight and there's no water source. He used that as part of his argument why it's so unsafe back there."

Bonner plans on using the Bank of America lot as an income producing facility, said Mallozzi and Franco.

"How much money do you make in a parking lot?" Franco asked. "That's the most ridiculous application of land use in New Canaan."

Pauline Dora, who owns design solutions, said she had not received any communication from Bonner.   She, like Franco, is hoping for an amicable resolution to the dispute.

"I hope he'll come around," Franco said. "We don't always get along all the time.  There are little dustups, but you make it work. To have a vibrant, healthy and uncluttered Elm Street is in the best interest of everyone."