Iqaluit restaurant owners trying to stop hotel from kicking them off property

The owners of Iqaluit's Hotel Arctic say a restaurant needs to leave the property by the end of the summer.

The owners of the Kickin' Caribou Pub and the Water's Edge Seafood and Steakhouse filed a statement of claim June 2, asking the court to stop the hotel from kicking the restaurant out.

Lawyers for both sides phoned in to a civil hearing in the Nunavut Court of Justice on Friday.

In court documents, the owners, sisters Donna and Kim Waters, say they renegotiated a lease with the hotel owner, Northview Apartment Reit, to stay until 2023.

Northview says those negotiations failed and the lease is up Aug. 31, 2017.

Northview argues it needs the restaurant gone by then because it has sold the hotel and it will suffer loss and damage if the building is not vacant.

The sale of the hotel closes on July 28.

In her affidavit, Donna Waters says she and her sister stand to lose their life savings if the restaurant has to leave the hotel, because it's impossible to move it to another location in Iqaluit.

"With the threat of economic ruin over our heads, my sister and I are in a constant state of anxiety, which is very debilitating as we are no longer young," Donna Waters said in her affidavit.

This is not the first time Northview and the Waters sisters have crossed paths in court.

In 2014, the hotel tried to evict the Waters sisters.

Northview claimed there were various breaches of the lease, like not keeping the restaurant in good repair and not conducting business in a "first-rate, business-like and reputable manner."

At the time, the sisters asked the court for an injunction and were able to stay.

In court on Friday, lawyers for both sides made it clear that the matter needs to be resolved soon, as the closing date on the sale of the hotel is fast approaching. They're aiming to hear the case by the end of June.