Durban - A giant advertisement enveloping a Durban building has got tenants steamed up, saying it is depriving them of fresh air.
The canvas, advertising KFC, is wrapped around more than half of the Tasnim Centre building in Bertha Mkhize (Victoria) Street in the CBD.
It stretches from the 5th to the 12th floor of the 13-storey building. These are the residential floors. The lower floors are reserved for businesses.
According to Hafiz Mohamed, an agent who handles all the building’s non-rental income on behalf of the owners, MHT Investments, the advert was put up last week.
He said it would run until “some time” next month.
Mohamed said no authorisation had been sought from the eThekwini Municipality, but said: “We have done both a structural and fire inspection to ensure that the site is 100% safe and we have the relevant approval from both the respective engineers.”
The Daily News visited some of the tenants this week and found one woman cooking.
“The steam just stays in the house, it can’t go anywhere because of this advert. They are suffocating us. They are making money at our expense and they can’t even fix the lift for more than a year,” she said.
In another flat, a man said the poor ventilation was to blame for his family being sick with flu.
“We can’t breathe here; it’s hot and stuffy,” he said.
Tenants asked not to be named.
They had received a notice asking for their “help” in keeping the advert in good condition and making sure nobody damaged or interfered with it in any way.
“We all cut up the last one, to get some air into our homes,” said the man, referring to a previous wrap-around.
Destroying this one - read the notice - would invite a R500 fine and criminal charges.
Tenants had approached the Organisation of Civic Rights, a tenants advocacy group established in response to the Group Areas Act evictions at Warwick Junction in the 1980s.
Chairman Iqbal Mohamed (no relation to Hafiz) said tenants were distraught at being “boxed-in”.
“We went there... and we were astounded. We will take legal action. To add insult to injury, they willy-nilly impose a fine and threaten criminal action, that is ridiculous,” he said.
The organisation has written to the eThekwini Municipality’s Health Safety and Social Services unit to intervene.
He said after initial contact with tenants, many appeared to be from other countries in Africa and they did not know who the owner of the building was.
“Tasnim Centre is one of many such buildings in Durban where migrant, immigrant or so-called foreign national tenants are rendered voiceless and are exploited because they are vulnerable. It is disgusting and utterly disrespectful and to an extent we should hold KFC accountable as well.”
Iqbal Mohamed said the fast-food franchise had a “moral obligation” to assess where their advertisements were being placed and that they were not interfering with the welfare of tenants.
KFC directed the Daily News to the owners because it had followed legal procedures in obtaining the advertising space.
Iqbal Mohamed believes the canvas poses a health risk and is hazardous, while tenants are not being allowed to enjoy the full use of the premises they rent.
“They have to have some kind of legal relief because any lease, verbal or written, means the landlord is duty-bound to ensure that the lessee has full use and enjoyment and that it is habitable.”
However, Hafiz Mohamed said they had not received any complaints from the tenants.
“We are not sure why they are unhappy as the material used is mesh, which allows light and air to flow through; we have never asked the tenants to not open windows. We also feel they should have raised any concerns with us or the landlord. We could have addressed these issues.”
He said the advertising income was beneficial to the tenants because it helped reduce the maintenance cost for the common areas, which in turn meant the tenants would not be burdened with increased rentals.
Hafiz Mohamed said the site would continue to be marketed.
The eThekwini Municipality was asked to comment on Wednesday but had not done so at time of publication.
The Daily News’s sister paper The Mercury, reported in June last year that the city had not been laying charges against those who broke building by-laws because it was not worth the time or effort and the paltry fines for conviction made it worthwhile for offenders to take the risk.
The admission was made in the Durban High Court by a city legal adviser, Mazo Maphumulo, in an application brought by the eThekwini Municipality against a beachfront shareblock building which had allowed a massive billboard to be erected on one side. The judge ordered the billboard be removed.
Daily News