Business Roundup: spooky hypnotist guy, Yoda, and more beer

I’ve decided to rename this weekly feature “Business Roundup” because I’m doing more than just listing new company and society registrations. This week, for example, I’m following up on a couple of previous registrations and am listing more ACOA awards. I have other ideas as well, but they’ll have to wait.

New company & society registrations

Tusket River Rum Company Limited
Tusket
Director: Michelle Renée Pottier
I’ve been trying to contact the Rum people, who seem somehow to be connected to the most fabulous business page on the Book of Faces, for Carl’s Store in Tusket. I know I say this most every week, but I’ve been busy and haven’t had time to connect properly (an intern is on the way, looks like).

Sunnyvale Productions 12 Incorporated
Dartmouth
Directors: Michael Smith, Robert Wells, John Paul Tremblay
Yep, the Trailer Park Boys. Sunnyvale Productions 8 was registered in April 2013; Sunnyvale Productions 9 in January 2014; Sunnyvale Productions 10 in December 2014; Sunnyvale Productions 11 also in December 2014. There’s no Sunnyvale Productions 1 through 7, so go figure.

Canning Boxing Club
Canning
President: Natasha Weisner
“Natasha Weisner of Canning said she has been involved in boxing since she was 15, beginning in Kentville with coaches Bryan Gibson and Joe Graves,” writes Kirk Starratt for the Kings County News:

She competed in the amateur ranks for several years and had one pro fight.

“Boxing changed my life as a young adolescent in and out of trouble and I believe that if it wasn’t for the sport of boxing I wouldn’t be who I am today, with the support of many people along the way,” Weisner said.

Weisner had a club with coach Chris Schofield that operated out of the Fit For Life gym in New Minas before the business burned in 2007. She recently got back into the sport after taking several years off to focus on her career and raising children.

Just over a year ago, her stepson Marcus decided that he wanted to try boxing. Weisner said she contacted coaches Graves and Nancy Chittick of the Berwick Boxing Club, who were “more than happy to have us there.” Through this association, Weisner began assisting as a coach with the Berwick club.

She said boxing has always been a passion and she decided to establish a club in Canning to benefit young people in the area.

Cape Breton Family Hypnosis
Balls Creek
Partner: Scott Arthur Helle
I don’t have anything to say about this; I just wanted to run that photo, presumably of Helle, from the Cape Breton Family Hypnosis Facebook page.

Well, maybe one thing: this is apparently about using hypnosis to quit smoking.

And, well, a second thing: for the next instalment of the Dead Wrong series, I’ve been learning about the use of hypnosis in court cases. Some years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that hypnosis could not be used to evoke witness testimony in a criminal case, but the court didn’t make the ruling retroactive, so people already convicted on the testimony of hypnotized witnesses were just shit out of luck. Guess who was using hypnosis to get info out of witnesses.

Well, OK, #3 thing to say: Family hypnosis?

Groomed With Love Pet Spa
Elmsdale
Partner: Valerie Knol
I don’t have anything to say about this, I just wanted to run those photos, presumably of Knol’s work, from Knol’s Facebook page.

Spinco Halifax
5481 Clyde Street
President (via a numbered company: Taylor Landry, Berwick)
Spinco is a national outfit that’s big on ridiculous videos, like the one above, full of beautiful white people out in nature but who evidently like to cram themselves inside and sweat next to each other on stationary bicycles. There are Spinco locations in Kelowna, Victoria, and Toronto. The Halifax location is in the new building on the Maryann block across from the Central Library. The other locations charge 25 bucks for a 50-minute intro class.

Special K Sphynx Cattery
Lake Charlotte
Partner: Curtis Korolyk
The interwebs tell me that a Sphynx cat is that Yoda-looking thing above. Special K’s website tells me that:

Special K Sphynx is a small home based sphynx cattery. We are lucky enough to reside in a beautiful country setting, approximately an hour from Halifax NS. Here we own approximately 11 acres of land on the Atlantic Ocean, and a century old farmhouse. Kristen has recently retired from the Royal Canadian Navy, and now devotes all her time to breeding healthy, happy sphynx, and bettering the breed.

Well, that’s neither here nor there. Far more interesting is that Kristen’s new-ish husband (they were married in July) and the registered owner of the company is Curtis Korolyk (also pictured above), who was awarded a Meritorious Service Decoration in October:

Crew members aboard HMCS Protecteur were recognized Wednesday for their bravery during an engine room fire in 2014.

Nine crew members were presented with medals for bravery or meritorious service by Governor General David Johnston at a ceremony in Quebec City.

The warship was en route to Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt from Hawaii when fire tore through the engine room on Feb. 27, 2014. About 20 people suffered minor injuries. The vessel was decommissioned in 2015.

[…]

Leading Seaman Curtis Korolyk entered the intense heat and flames of the fire zone five times, volunteered for the hazardous duty of locking the propeller shaft, and acted as on-scene commander in the boiler room.

Not that there’s a thing wrong with it, but it’s kind of funny that the tough dude is now hanging out with funny looking cats.

Updates

In January, I noted the opening of The Trove Boutique:

The Trove Boutique
217 Herring Cove Road
Partners: Emily Mosher and Kye Dorey
Mosher and Dorey opened and closed the Zion’s Gate Boutique on Williams Lake Road last year — “It’s half clothing store, half museum,” Mosher told Allison Saunders at The Coast. The new location, the former Water & Wine space on Herring Cove Road, is probably better placed to catch passersby’s attention. (I’m troubled by that apostrophe; maybe a grammarian can comment.)

Last week, Dorey was violently attacked at the business, reports CTV:

A small Halifax business owner says he feels he has no choice but to close up shop after he was robbed and brutally attacked Thursday afternoon.

A man entered the Trove Boutique on Herring Cove Road, went behind the counter and hit Kye Dorey multiple times in the back of the head with a wrench.

[…]

Despite the suspect being caught, Kye Dorey says for his family, the existing threat is just not worth it, so he and his partner have decided to close the shop.

“I could have lost it all, and that’s in a matter of moments, for someone trying to get a few bucks,” says Dorey.

They’re not giving up entirely; though, they’ve decided to move their business online, for now, on the Trove Boutique’s Facebook page.

A court document obtained by the Halifax Examiner — an Information to Obtain (ITO) a search warrant filed by RCMP Constable Kyle Doane — gives more information about the robbery.

According to the ITO, police were called to the Trove Boutique at 12:14pm on February 23 and found Dorey, bloodied. (Dorey’s named is misspelled throughout the document as “Dory.”) Dorey told police that a man had attacked him with a wrench, but Dorey was able to fight him off and run to the Water and Wine store next door to call 911. After he returned to Trove, Dorey found a wooden cash box was missing.

A police dog brought to the scene sniffed its way to the backyard of a nearby house, where the dog’s handler found a wooden box with paper paper receipts from The Trove, and three coins on top of the snow. The dog couldn’t follow the trail any farther, however.

Dorey told police that he had recognized the man from previous visits to the store. During those previous visits, the man was accompanied by a woman pushing a baby stroller. Judging by the description, police thought the man was probably Shawn Newman; as they were driving to Newman’s apartment at 154 Herring Cove Road, they saw Newman with his girlfriend, who was pushing a stroller, at the Petro Can on Herring Cove Road. The ITO doesn’t say if there was a baby in the stroller. The girlfriend told police she had been with Newman all day, except for 15 minutes when he went out to “buy smokes.” Those 15 minutes corresponded with the time of the robbery and assault at the Trove.

According to the ITO, a review of police records found that in November, “Halifax Regional Police were contacted by Child Services to assist with the execution [of an] execution order [i.e., an order to remove a child from a home] and to keep the peace…  the father of the child, Shawn Newman, had kicked them out of that address and was preventing the order from being executed.” Newman was arrested. The ITO doesn’t say what happened with the girlfriend or the child.

The search warrant was executed for Newman’s apartment, and police seized a wrench and several items of clothing.

The allegations against Newman have not been tested in court.

Halifax Hybrid Geothermal Services Limited
Halifax
President: James Bardsley
Bardsley had registered the partnership Halifax Hybrid Geothermal Services just last month, but has dissolved the company and re-registered the business as a limited liability corporation.

I wrote about Bardsley’s problem-plagued past here. Today, Bardsley sent me an email explaining that while the May 2012 Chronicle Herald story related a court judgment against him, the paper did not follow up on a supplementary decision issued by Justice Moir in November 2012, in which the judge admitted he misunderstood the financial issues and made a mistake. That supplementary decision basically reversed the earlier decision, absolving Bardsley of any financial responsibility and leaving ownership of the drill bit with him.

The decision is great fun to read, in that it’s hopelessly complex. But read down and you’ll see the straight-forward language about Bardsley, highlighted. See the decision here.

Bardsley says he emailed the Chronicle Herald asking for the original article to be updated, but isn’t holding his breath.

ACOA awards

Copper Bottom Brewing
Montague, PEI
ACOA continues with its brewery-funding. Copper Bottom received a $216,000 loan to “purchase equipment to establish a microbrewery.” Some other government agency kicked in $10,000, and full project costs are $923,500.

Copper Bottom is started by Ken Spears and Ashley Condon, who explain that:

We both share a passion for craft beer and music. Ken has brewed for over 14 years while working as a red seal electrician from here to Alberta and I (Ashley) have been touring North America as a musician for the last ten. We wanted to create something in our community, a reason to be closer to home and make a living doing what we love together. Opening a craft brewery offers the opportunity for all of that.

Ken’s passion for craft beer started while selling six packs out of the back door of Propeller Brewing in 2003. In 2012, we built the “Brewdio”, a nanobrewery and music studio at our Sturgeon home. It is here where Ken developed his tasty beer recipes and where he turned his 14 year obsession with brewing into a plan to open a craft brewery in Montague. My passion for craft beer came from my travels as a touring musician and was soon intrigued with the idea of bringing a musical component to the project. Here we are many years later, writing our story and excited for you to try our tasty brews.

aioTV Inc
Halifax
aioTV received a $500,000 loan to “develop [a] metadata management and curation platform.” aioTV was started in Colorado in 2010, and in 2011 Innovacorp bought a $1 million equity stake in the company, announcing that:

The company produces a cloud-based video delivery platform that telephone companies, cable companies and other broadband service providers can use to let their customers find and watch their favourite video content, regardless of source.

…aioTV has six developers in Halifax. The company will expand the team to 12 employees by spring 2012.

St. Anthony Port Authority Inc.
St. Anthony, Newfoundland
The Port Authority is receiving a $900,000 ACOA grant to “expand channel to allow larger vessels access to inner harbour.”

St. Anthony is at the very northern tip of the island of Newfoundland, not far from where the Vikings encamped at L’Anse aux Meadows. The ACOA grant is part of a $1.5 million project to destroy Harbour Rock, reports the CBC:

St. Anthony is hoping to turn itself into an even busier hub for marine activity, once it removes a large rock in its harbour.

St. Anthony Mayor Ern Simms, who also chairs the town’s harbour authority, says some larger ships can’t dock in the town due to what is known locally as Harbour Rock.

“There’s a buoy on it and it’s been there since the harbour was formed, and it’s been an impediment,” said Simms.

[…]

St. Anthony Basin Resources has a 20- to 25-year contract with shipping company Eimskip, which stops in St. Anthony as one of only five North American ports.

Simms said the company is hoping to put larger ships on the route once the rock is removed.

[…]

“The ships that are travelling through the Arctic are going to require a last post to stop and top up or whatever the case might be, so we’re looking at becoming that,” he told CBC’s Corner Brook Morning Show.

I don’t know if this makes any sense, but in context, $1.5 million is about what the typical street repaving project costs in Halifax.

Akoma Holdings Incorporated
Dartmouth
Akoma operates the Home for Coloured Children. It is receiving a $250,000 ACOA grant to “renovate the original Akoma orphanage site.” The entire project costs $945,175.