Manchester Evening News, UK
February 2, 2007 Friday
Help! My business is going down the drain
by: MIKE KEEGAN
BUSINESSMAN Masis Kalanyan contacted Get It Sorted! in desperation as
he is on the verge of being forced to close down his popular
Manchester city centre restaurant.
Masis, 53, has been running the basement Armenian Taverna on Princess
Street for over 30 years.
In that time he has served up tasty Eurasian cuisine to thousands and
the restaurant has become something of a city institution.
But when contractors began work at the back of the premises in
November it began to cause major problems.
"We’ve had sewage water coming through from the work they were doing"
said Masis.
"It was coming into the toilets but it wasn’t far off getting into
the kitchen – we had to put flattened cardboard boxes down to stop if
from spreading."
He contacted his landlord, United Utilities and Manchester council,
but was on the brink of having to close for health and safety reasons
when he called us.
United Utilities assured us that workmen were on their way to tackle
the problem straight away and promptly sent a team who pumped out the
water from the restaurant on Wednesday.
But on Thursday morning, when Masis returned to the restaurant, the
water was back.
"I’ve been told two different things" he said.
"One is that there is grease in the drains which is causing a
blockage and the other is that it is an old Victorian drainage system
and part of the wall has collapsed.
"I just need whatever problem it is to be sorted because we’re not
far away from closing down."
We went back to United Utilities who said that a permanent fix would
be worked on next week.
In the meantime they are sending teams to pump water out and allow
Masis to carry on trading.
We will keep an eye on the situation.
GRAPHIC: THE HOLE PROBLEM Roadworks near the Armenian Taverna which
is suffering from flooding
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
