Then it was the pothole vigilantes who dominated the news cycle. When asked why he took matters into his own hands and patched nearly 100 potholes without permission, Saad Tekiout told The Gazette<\/a>: \u201cI think we deserve to have better roads. I\u2019m doing this for the love of my city.\u201d<\/p>\n Fei, along with Ville-Marie city councillor Leslie Roberts, joined hosts Bill Brownstein and Aaron Rand on this week\u2019s episode of The Corner Booth to find common ground when it comes to myriad problems plaguing Montreal\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the majority of last year, Ste-Catherine St. near Guy St. was closed. \u200aAnd then this year, right after it\u2019s opened for a month or two, it started again closing up,\u201d Fei said.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aFor us mainly, it\u2019s less people going to downtown because of frustration. We rely heavily on Uber Eats for deliveries, right? Then a lot of time you don\u2019t have drivers. So the algorithm is going to turn off for your restaurant for a certain period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n Roberts said he has been hearing about similar struggles from business owners since being elected in November.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aBottom line is, the work we inherited has to get done,\u201d Roberts said. \u201c\u200aThe original schedule was 2030. Through some of our efficiencies, we\u2019ve managed to cut it back to 2029, and we are continuing to look at other ways to do it. <\/p>\n \u201cIn the meantime, there are financial relief funds that we have at the city. There were many restaurant owners and business owners in the district that weren\u2019t eligible when we came in, and we\u2019ve now expanded the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n And while Roberts said the city is doing what it can to support local businesses, he has less sympathy for the so-called pothole vigilantes doing roadwork without permits.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat if something goes wrong? Then what? Are we supposed to pay?\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n Fei offered a potential solution: the city could work alongside anyone who wants to help.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI would recommend you have a volunteer group,\u201d Fei said. \u201c\u200aYou can have volunteers that cost nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n The Corner Booth is also available on The Gazette\u2019s\u00a0YouTube channel<\/a>,\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>\u00a0and on\u00a0Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The streets of Montreal went viral on social media this week, but for all the wrong reasons. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-642964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Aaron](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0502-city-cornerbooth-podcast-8567_302863400.jpg\")
Aaron Rand and Bill Brownstein chat with restauranteur Feigang Fei and Montreal city councillor, Leslie Roberts at the Snowdon Deli in Montreal on the latest episode of The Corner Booth. Dave Sidaway \/ Montreal Gazette Dave Sidaway \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\n