Real world court battle over fantasy TV show in Steveston

Alan Campbell

Two Steveston businesses and their landlord were tangled in a real-life tale of woe, with Disney trapped in the middle

The backdrop was the fairytale character of Rumplestiltskin who, as the BC Supreme Court pointed out, “initially brought wealth, but eventually sowed discord” in the village during the filming of the ABC channel’s hit fantasy TV show Once Upon A Time (OUAT)

Front and centre in the real world, however, was a fight involving two adjoining businesses and their Moncton Street landlord The Fab Pad and It’s Posh Accessories on one side and building owner PD Riverside Ventures on the other

At the heart of the controversy was a dispute over production company Disney/ Stage 49’s payments to the tenants for business interruption and to the landlord for exterior shots of the premises, which doubled in OUAT as Mr Gold’s Pawn Shop, the “real world” version of the fairytale charac- ter Rumplestiltskin.

And in a not so happy ending, The Fab Pad’s owner, Laura Stapleton, was ordered to pay the landlord $19,629 17 for breach of the lease extension contract, while It’s Posh Accessories’ owners, Kimberley and Karl Sorensen, were ordered to pay $44,396 72

Court documents released this week told how the landlord, PD Riverside Ventures represented in person at the premises by a Dyona Dallas signed a three-year lease in 2013 with the tenants, while OUAT was still shooting in Steveston and, off and on, using the premises for filming

In the lease contract was a clause, which stated the landlord “shall retain full rights with respect to receiving compensation for the use of the exterior images” of the building and that the tenant “shall have the rights to receive compensation for business interruption ”

It also stated that “ any and all contact or negotiations for these uses shall be through the landlord only” and not with Disney/ Stage 49

However, during the course of that lease term, the tenants dealt directly with Disney, providing calculations to and receiving cheques from the production company for business interruption losses from filming Court documents state that Dallas was “content to allow the tenants to deal directly with Stage 49, as she was at that time focused on her ailing parents ”

In a twist to the tale, from around August 2015, more than two years into the lease term, Dallas began asking the tenants about the business interruption payments and their dealings with Stage 49

And in April 2016, Scott Walden, from Disney, sent Dallas a copy of the location contract for the next season, at which time she took that opportunity to inquire with Walden about the business interruption arrangements with the tenants

BC Supreme Court judge Justice David Crerar noted the tenants expressed legitimate fears that Dallas would “try to leverage the business interruption payments in future negotiations” for the lease renewal

However, he also pointed out that Dallas, too, had a “good faith explanation” for her new interest in the business interruption payments as it wasn’t clear that the Sorensens would be the tenants during the next filming season

That lease was extended beyond 2016 and the two businesses continued to operate as before.

But it was around that time in the summer of 2016 that the relationship between the tenants and the landlord deteriorated to a point where they could only communicate via lawyers

And stuck in the middle was the Disney production company, which was preparing to film for the next season of OUAT and was getting pulled in both directions by the landlord and the tenants as to who to negotiate with in regard to payments

For the full story, go to Richmond-News. com and search OUAT.