Ironically Toronto already had a floating restaurant called Captain Jacks. At the base of Yonge St. The Port Authority and the Owner could not come to an agreement on money owned for use of the slip. The owner packed in after a good run for a couple of decades. The vintage ship was towed away, and hacked up for scrap. Toronto was left without a good restaurant on the water.
The man was a crook and the restaurant was terrible, but he was very successful at not paying taxes. After years in dispute, I was there to cheer the tug to tow that dump away. Then the city erected a monument to commemorate him!
From what I remember, there was a a group of investors that wanted to purchase the boat, modernize it, make it into a really swanky, multi-purpose, venue, on the water. But by that point the Port Authority and owner had been fighting for so long that mediation/intervention wasn't possible.
It could be argued the Port Authority was charging him too much, perhaps just to get him to go. And that the owner was getting old, the best days of his restaurant were 30 years ago.
