A passionate and emotional Barrie business owner enters Day 10 of a self-imposed hunger strike today as he battles the city’s building department over the ongoing construction of his planned restaurant in the north end, which has now ground to a halt.
Murtaza Eyup Hapapci, 58, who goes by the name Eddie and who has called Canada and Barrie home for the past 20 years after growing up in Turkey, has been living on nothing more than water fortified with salt, sugar, baking soda, and vitamin B1, at his wife’s urging, for more than a week.
Having run out of money trying to complete and open his business, due to errors he claims were the city's fault, and feeling he's at the end of his rope and out of time, Hapapci says he's willing to die for his cause and for what he believes is right.
He says no one with the city is listening to him or helping, as he tries to make progress.
“I don’t feel (I am) equal,” he said on Wednesday at his Bell Farm Road business, where he has spent his time lying on the floor in front of the window.
He now sits cross-legged, looking tired, on a thin mattress placed under the large front window of the restaurant.
On the outside of the window there are handwritten posters voicing his concern with the situation, taped to the glass for passersby to see. One of the posters says “Day 8,” which is counting the days passed on his hunger strike.
“I show good faith to everyone; no one shows me good faith. This is my last card,” he says with his voice rising. “This is not a game anymore.”
“I want to die!” he yells as he pounds his chest, his voice breaking with emotion. “I want to die! Because this is my decision, not the (city's) decision!”
He continues his rant with tears welling up in his eyes, clearly frustrated, naming city staffers he says he has dealt with.
His 61-year-old wife, Nicole, sitting in a lawn chair nearby, begins to cry.
The pair began their quest to open a restaurant, to run as a retirement business, back in February 2023.
Prior to that, Hapapci was a residential HVAC technician (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) for 13 years. Before arriving in Canada, he was a marine biologist in his home country. But his passion in life is to cook.
The couple embarked on a plan to open his business, and met with the Small Business Centre downtown, with the city, and prepared a business plan.
Hapapci’s kitchen design describes the cooking equipment as a 10-foot charcoal stove area with a 14-foot natural gas area.
He says he dealt with the city several times, along with Barrie fire officials, to finally hammer out what was needed to meet the building code requirements.
Hapapci says he then signed a lease for the space on Bell Farm Road. The plan was to open for business last May.
He says what followed was a constant struggle for him and his wife.
“I’m a rules-and-regulation kind of person,” Hapapci says.
When he was younger, back in Turkey, he was in the military as serving was mandatory.
“I was a safety commander," he says.
Hapapci says that, according to the Ontario Building Code, the City of Barrie’s job is to review and check his design plan. If anything is “wrong,” the person can respond within 20 days.
He claims the planning department told him it would take two-and-half months for the review, which Hapapci told them was “impossible, that’s too late." He also accuses a city staffer of lying to him.
Then he says there were issues with site inspections in regard to equipment which needed to be installed for air ventilation over the two cooking stoves, among other structural issues the two sides fought over.
He disputes the city’s requirements and believes they are misinterpreting specifications outlined in the province’s building code.
Hapapci claims the city inspectors he has dealt with are inexperienced and prone to mistakes, which has cost him a lot of money and time.
In January, the application containing the plans was rescinded by the company he hired for the engineering work and, according to Hapapci, he was not aware of that development until several months later.
Hapapci also says he had a legal issue resolved in court. He says it involved the original engineering firm he hired to create the drawings for his business construction, which were submitted to the city and subsequently approved. He would not specify what the legal issue was, but says they were ordered not to communicate with each other.
“The applicant for the permit was hired by the business owner to act on his behalf,” City of Barrie chief building official Paul Evans said in a statement Thursday.
Building department staff reviewed and approved drawings that were sent in by the applicant, Evans added.
"However, the work was not constructed according to the permit documents, so staff requested that new drawings be provided," he said. "Later, the applicant working on behalf of the business owner requested that the permit be cancelled, which staff in the building department did."
The business owner’s contact information was not provided in the original permit, Evans said.
"Staff remain available to assist in any way possible within the building code requirements,” he added.
Hapapci disputes the building department did not have his contact information and could have gotten a hold of him at the time.
The Hapapcis say they have sold their house and have also spent tens of thousands of dollars on the project up to this point. They also continue to pay rent on the restaurant location.
Hapapci said they would have to redo an application along with new construction plans and spend thousands more dollars, repeating the process all over again.
They feel they are stuck, with no hope for help.
“My husband is a kind, caring person, so he wants his hunger strike to help the next person behind him, praying they will not have to experience the same problems and treatment,” Nicole Hapapci said.
“We sacrificed so much," she added. "Errors were made and they think we are supposed to keep accepting them? What is wrong with people?”
Nicole says she's not ready to sit and watch her husband “leave this world for all their mistakes and financial burden they have set upon us.”
Eddie, meanwhile, says he had been experiencing abdominal pain up to a couple of days ago, which is why he has mixed his water bottle with the salt, sugar and baking soda concoction to help support his organs, at his wife's urging.
“It's so sad how they have crushed his spirit like this," she said. "I will do everything I can to keep him going and remind him not to lose hope in opening his business one day."
Exhausted from the hour-long interview, Eddie lays back on his mattress, looks up at the ceiling and stubbornly waits.
