Anger, accusations as courier for Amazon clashes with neighbours in Sudbury. Ont.

Courier has some residents upset in Sudbury People in the Flour Mill say they're having a tough time with a new neighbour, the courier Intelcom, which has moved into their community.

Sudbury — Residents in the Flour Mill area of Greater Sudbury are up in arms these days over one of its new neighbours: courier company Intelcom, which moved in early this year.

The national courier -- known for making Amazon deliveries -- is using a building on Mountain Street as its new sorting facility.

Wil Currie has lived next door to the property for years, with the Rotary Trail and municipal property separating his home from Intelcom. He said the noise from the facility in the last little while has been a personal nightmare for him and his wife Vivian.

"Our home is shaken, the noise is constant, the people sit here and jeer at us -- it's never-ending," Currie said. "At one point, we enjoyed the solace of our quiet corner and suddenly it's all gone."

Footage provided to CTV from the Currie's home security system shows transport traffic coming through at all hours of the night. The timestamp of one delivery was at 3 a.m., just steps away from their bedroom.

Nearly two dozen people who live on either Mountain or Harvey streets joined the Curries on Thursday morning to speak to CTV and to Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann.

Christine Leclerc said she awoke to hear a big bang outside her home one night, only to find a transport truck had hit one of the overhead wires, damaging her house.

"It was a frightful thing because of the big bang," Leclerc said. "It sounded like someone hit a vehicle or hit something really hard."

Jesse Heikkila said he's been hassled by the company's security while walking to Rotary Trail with his children.

"I don't think they want people here that are going to complain, I think they want people to leave -- they're not very polite," Heikkila said. "They harass old people that are walking their dogs, which I don't think was fair."

"There's been noise, intimidation, a number of things," said Currie. "We do not have any privacy. They have a security company hired to supposedly deal with their bad drivers and their driving habits -- not so. They've been watching us, they videotape us."

"I come home on Sunday to get the dog off a tree ... I look up and the security guard is following me along my fence," he added. "My wife is out picking cherries and the next day she's out watching my wife."

Landry-Altmann said she's heard many complaints from residents about the company.

"It's been the deliveries, it's been the parking on the street, blocking the street, blocking the Rotary Trail access," she said.

"It's escalated to the point that now police services have been called, harassment charges are being made. The security service is telling people they can't use Rotary Trail. That's where we're at."

The long-time city councillor said the situation was completely avoidable. She's written to the company CAO and said she's still waiting for a response to her latest concerns.

Company gave assurances

"He gave us assurances that they would put in speed bumps, they would quiet things down and we were very hopeful with that," Landry-Altmann said. "Unfortunately, those directions weren't clearly understood so here we are today."

As Landry-Altmann made those comments to CTV, security could be seen taking photos of the cars on municipal property at the trail, including her personal vehicle.

"Part of goodwill is understanding where you're located and I'm surprised that Intelcom would locate themselves within an R1 neighbourhood," she said. "Knowing the nature of their business, it's based on speed."

Landry-Altmann said they want the company to prosper, but there needs to be a dialogue. The business shouldn't prosper to the detriment of the rest of the neighbourhood.

Landry-Altmann said the security guards are being aimed at the neighbourhood and that's not right. She said the city has had bylaw out to educate Intelcom on where their property line is and how they shouldn't be conducting their business on municipal property.

Greater Sudbury Police have confirmed to CTV they've been called to the area five times since April.

"None of these incidents have met the threshold for criminal charges, however, both involved parties have been warned not to attend the other property and have been educated on how to keep the peace," said police spokesperson Kaitlyn Dunn in a statement.

"Many of the reported issues fall under the mandate of bylaw and the residents have indicated that they are in contact with CGS bylaw regarding the issues."

Intelcom said they were the ones to contact police after feeling threatened and police and bylaw have both informed the company that it's not doing anything wrong. That has not been verified by either police or Greater Sudbury.

Statement from Intelcom

In its initial statement to CTV, the company had this to say:

"It has been a delicate situation with some residents of the neighbourhood in which our Sudbury sorting station is located since we launched our operations in August 2020."

"Our operations team at the Sudbury station has been working closely with the bylaw department to make sure we comply with the rules and regulations that apply to the zoning classification of the building we are renting. Their representatives visited our site about a dozen times to confirm our compliance and the collaboration has been great with them."

"Issues that were raised to us by residents have been addressed. They have been prioritized by our operations team ever since some citizens pointed the inconveniences generated by our activities. Measures have been taken to mitigate the annoyances that were pointed out. Among these, we have completely stopped loading our independent delivery contractors' vehicles in front of the building we occupy.

"We have added extra signage at the entrance to our facilities asking delivery drivers to slow down considerably as they arrive and leave. Similarly, signs informing delivery personnel of certain guidelines to follow are now visible on our grounds, as well as inside our building, and a marshal is permanently on site during the busiest hours at our facilities to supervise traffic."

"All of the independent delivery contractors we work with are frequently met with so that they understand they must insist that their drivers behave properly when they come to our facilities. We communicate with the independent delivery contractors on a daily basis to reinforce the importance of our guidelines."

"Some situations escalated to the point that our employees felt the need to contact law enforcement. Some employees even reported being victims of harassment, taunting and racial slurs at some point. Every time, our reaction has been to collaborate with law enforcement to ensure the security of our employees and to foster goodwill in the neighbourhood. It is our understanding that one neighbour was recently given verbal and written criminal trespassing warnings by Greater Sudbury constables."

Racial slurs

CTV News did request an interview and was told no one was available.

Intelcom didn't elaborate on what the racial slurs were that were hurled to their employees and the neighbours in the community deny ever making them.

When pressed further by CTV News regarding the transport traffic in the neighbourhood at all hours of the night, Intelcom responded they are currently allowed to do it under city zoning.

Landry-Altmann said the company has been using police to intimidate residents.

"That's unfortunate and in all of this ... these are people doing their job," said Landry-Altmann.

She has a petition signed by more than 140 people and it will be delivered to the city.

"It's been really difficult and for us personally, we would like to get something solved here," said Currie's wife, Vivian.

"We would like them to move to an industrial area where they should be, away from a residential neighbourhood before something serious happens and someone gets hurt because we have the trail here and it gets very congested."

The building's property owner was also unavailable for an official comment.