MONTREAL (CityNews) – A car dealership in Laval says it was forced to halt business after it claims city plows blocked the entrance with snow and blocks of ice.

When the dealership owner, Mike Havitov, reviewed the security cameras, he noticed that the city intentionally blocked his driveway while clearing the snow.

“You can see in the footage there are two trucks communicating with each other, coming in opposite directions to put snow from up and down the street to block our passage to our business. And that’s malicious. It’s not accidental or just passing machinery like they regularly should do,” explained Leonard Abraham, General Manager of Auto Shelby.

The city of Laval says it has warned him not to dump his snow onto the public way, saying that, “for four years, the owner of 344 curé-labelle has been dumping snow on the public domain during snowstorms. However, snow dumping from private land onto the public highway is prohibited by municipal regulations. Every year, we warn this citizen not to put the snow from their parking lot in the reserved lane.”

Havitov says he has not received any notices from the city and has been complaining to them since 2017. He has called and complained about the city workers willingly piling up snow in front of the dealership’s main entrance, but the city has not responded.

“Usually what we do, is we get another company to come. And it costs us money out of our own pocket–$500 or $600– to have a company come with a dumpster truck to pick it up and take it away to be able to access our building, because they make big compact piles with heavy machinery that we can’t shovel with the trucks,” explained Abraham.

“Whoever is right or wrong, it’s not the way to proceed in any way. No letters–we never got a complaint written here. Instead they just take action on their own hand and come and block our entrance. Our place here is now we weren’t able to clear the snow. We had no access for a few days and it’s like that every time there’s a storm.”

Havitov says he contacted his city councillor yesterday. They now are working together to find a solution.