After dealing with a rejected rezoning application from the Islands Trust, the Salt Spring Coffee Company is now facing opposition from a neighbour to its Richmond roasting operation.

Darryl Segal, president of a company called International Cosmeticare, said some of his employees have threatened to resign because they feel ill while at work and that heart palpitations suffered by his father have become worse due to roasting activities.

Segal’s company, which manufactures a natural hair-growth product, and SSCC are next-door neighbours in an industrial complex on Horseshoe Way in south Richmond, with only a wall separating the two operations.

“We have endured much ‘pain and suffering’ these last 11 months, more than you can ever imagine, since [Salt Spring Coffee] started to roast coffee,” said Segal in a letter to the lawyer of the unit owner renting space to the coffee company, which Segal provided to the Driftwood.

He said that on the days that coffee is roasted, his staff experience irritation of the eyes, skin and respiratory tract, and also feel lightheaded, nausea and heart palpitations.

“When Salt Spring Coffee do no roasting, my staff feel none of these symptoms.”

Segal said the company has violated the strata council bylaws by not obtaining written approval from the council before making alterations to its rented unit’s exterior, and by engaging in activities that “are likely to produce unacceptable levels of noise, fumes, dust or fluids.”

Segal criticizes the fact that SSCC only applied for a permit from Metro Vancouver to operate a thermal oxidizer in November, several months after it began roasting coffee there. However, permits are only required if a complaint is received.

WorkSafe BC has also determined that the exhaust stack height must be increased from five to 10 or 15 feet, but Segal said the strata council has not provided the written approval needed to create the hole required.

Coffee company president Mickey McLeod said Tuesday that due to oversights the company may have not done some things it should have when it began roasting earlier this year, but the exhaust stack approval is the last thing required.

He takes issue with Segal’s attempts to stop SSCC from roasting coffee and the health-related complaints he has made.

McLeod said the company has been allowed to continue its activities at the site — which it has rented as a distribution depot for the past three years — because it is complying with various WorkSafe BC, Metro Vancouver and Richmond council requirements, he said.

“We’ve had good communication with everyone with what we’re doing and we’re moving forward accordingly.”

SSCC said a WorkSafe BC representative even installed a device that measured air quality for two days while the roaster was in operation.

“We were well, well below WorkSafe BC’s minimum standards — with a guy standing beside the roaster for two whole days,” said McLeod.

“All the accusations [Segal] is making are totally inaccurate and wrong,” he added.

McLeod said the company now mostly roasts on evenings and weekends to avoid any conflict for Segal’s employees. He notes the Richmond site produces only one tenth of the coffee the Salt Spring plant handles. Another coffee roasting company also operates in the area, he said.

SSCC’s Richmond operation is a temporary one, he stressed, as the company continues to seek a permanent location with a significant “green” facility like the one it had envisioned for Salt Spring.

“We have to live with who we are and what we do every day, and I’m totally fine with that.”

But Segal is not happy with whatever attempts McLeod has made to appease him so far, and recently made his story public when working with regulatory agencies did not result in a shutdown of the operation.

Segal said he is “100 per cent committed to make sure we are not right next door to a coffee roasting plant.”