QUOTED: Captain John on his last-gasp attempt to save his novelty restaurant

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“I may be down, but I’m not out. I am not running away. What they are doing to me is not fair.”

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—John Letnik, the owner of Captain John’s Seafood Restaurant, on why he won’t succumb to efforts to rid the Toronto shoreline of his now-defunct nautical restaurant. The rusting sea vessel was shut down by city officials last year after Letnik failed to pay mounting realty taxes and other fees, which currently total over $1 million. The Toronto Port Authority filed an application in early December to seize and sell the waterfront relic.

Letnik launched a $1.2 million counter-suit last week in a last-ditch attempt to save the less-than-seaworthy ship, parts of which are reportedly rotting and contaminated with asbestos. Letnik is claiming that the city unfairly stymied his efforts to offload the boat by refusing to grant a long-term lease along the city’s waterfront—a stumbling block to a potential deal last summer with an eccentric Slovenian multi-millionaire. While the month-to-month lease is certainly not ideal, we can think of a few other potential impediments to a sale: namely, the multiple sources confirming that the ship is more or less worthless, even as scrap. [Toronto Star]