What a shocker, my good friend Eddie Greenspan passed away yesterday morning in his sleep. I met Eddie in July of 1983. I had opened my main TV Decoder Distributor Electronics store at 645 The Queensway Ave. in Toronto on a Monday afternoon in March of 1983 about a week after the grand opening of my other three Toronto stores. Cable companies in Canada had rolled out their pay tv programming and I could see that everyone would want one of our devices that I had been selling around the world for five years. The media publicity was crazy with front page pictures in The Toronto star, Globe and mail and TV Station news coverage of the lineups of new clients who were putting down $100 deposits for decoders to unscramble their new pay tv channels on cable. These clients would have to wait three days to two weeks for their units to be built. I had dozens of TV technicians and amateur electronic buffs who wanted instruction sheets on how to build these units. Many had ordered the parts to begin their own units and began to openly advertise them as Cable Decoders. I told them all that was not a wise move as the cable companies would not put up with this blatant action on their parts. Two weeks later my store managers told me they had observed men in black at all our stores taking pictures of clients coming in and out of our locations. Two months later Ted Rogers and his security managers stopped in to inform me that we may be contravening the telecommunications act by selling these devices in Toronto. He was very friendly and I told him we had been selling these devices in Windsor, Vancouver and Mexico for over the air scrambled channels for five years to our American, Spanish and Canadian clients. We went next door for a coffee together and he tried to tell me I was breaking the law. I told him that my lawyers had said we were not breaking any laws as clients were buying electronic parts from us and sub contracting our technicians to assemble these parts for them. We never sold any pre-assembled devices. We had all our clients sign a document that warned them that they may be contravening the communication laws if they were to connect these devices to their cable systems and they happened to unscramble these Pay TV Channels without paying their TV service providers for these services on a monthly basis. I said to Ted, isnt it ironic how you and your cable companies put thousands of TV antenna installers and TV technicians out of work with the advent of your cable companies and trying to get municipalities to add bylaws for removal of all external tv antennas on their homes? He said that is technological progress for you. Ted told me he had seen all of my National TV broadcast news coverage in North America of the line-ups at my stores from the previous five years and would have his lawyers get back to me. One month later Teds company began charging their own cable customers who were using devices to unscramble these channels. Another two months had passed and I had a total of nine Decoder Distributors stores from Windsor to Montreal and was supplying 305 TV and electronic stores across Canada. On a July 1983 afternoon I was back in River Canard enjoying a relaxing afternoon around our pool with my wife, kids and some neighbors when I received a phone call from my Toronto store manager Darlene who sounded very frightened. She said the store is filled with forty or fifty police officers and their Sargent would like to see you immediately. I asked her to put him on the phone. He said Mr. Piet we have orders to confiscate all illegal tv decoders on the premises. I told him all we had were electronic parts that were being assembled for clients and that we had no devices on the premises that were capable of decoding any TV cable services. Little did he know we were waiting for a shipment of capacitors coming the next day to finish our units. He said oh and he said let me call you back in ten minutes. My staff told me he asked his detectives who had prepared these charges and was was the basis. He called his chief and was told Ted Rogers staff was watching from outside the store. He went out to speak with them. When he came back in he told his officers to go back to regular duty and something about those morons dont know their ....... from their ...... He called me back and said he would have to close our stores for investigation and evidence collection and that the police will be laying charges. I called my lawyer who is now a judge and he suggested I consult with his close friend Eddie Greenspan. I immediately called Eddies Toronto office, talked to his secretary to explain what had happened, the TV crews and newspaper reporters outside our stores, etc. and she said he was on vacation and she would get back to me the next day.. Five minutes later, to my amazement Eddie himself called me back. His first words Ive been following all your media coverage for months and wondering how long it would take Ted and the other cable companies to shut your stores down. We talked about our mutual Windsor friends and then about my decoder sales history. Eddie asked if I could come to Toronto to his home the next day. I said I could and he said in the meantime give me the police officers name and number. I drove to Eddies home with one of my store managers and we had a great meeting. Eddie told me Ted and the other cable operators had hired quite a crew of lawyers to pour through the law books to try and close my stores down asap. He said, I have good news for you. You can open your stores again until we go to court and we can stretch that for about six to eight months. In the end your company will pay a thousand dollar fine and you will have to close your stores because they will spend millions to keep testing all the laws that may apply to these electronic devices. I said great. How much is this going to cost me. Eddie said he needed a few units for his buddies. I said I just happen to have about a dozen in my car. We met over a dozen times, had some great lunch and dinner meetings as well as sporting events. We remained great friends over the years. I met with Eddie to let him know about my plans to put a Toronto Eye on the waterfront in Toronto with the help of my old friend Ron Barbaro who was the CEO of Prudential, The Toronto Argonauts as well as CEO of The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission.. He made some great suggestions and we planned on getting together after the New Year. I will miss my friend Eddie. To his family, friends and associates we send our deepest condolences. torontosun/2014/12/24/lawyer-eddie-greenspan-dead-at-70 torontosun/…/lawyer-eddie-greenspan-dead-at-…
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:00:50 +0000
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