It was probably always a bad idea.

“Is this going to hurt me in the long run?” he asks. “Probably. And my family is worried. My mom. They are very worried for me. They told me, you need to figure this out or your future is going to be looking very, very bad.”

Family matters to Nicholas Colaneri. It weaves through his conversation. The fact his mom loves Hallmark movies, ironically, led her son into the lion’s den. NOTL is a movie set kind of place. He thought he could rescue it.

“I tried everything I could to save the Royal George and make sure policies and rules were followed and upheld,” he says. “I am sorry I failed.”

Failed, but not finished.

Colaneri is the 39-year-old small-time house-builder and son of a winery clan who has lived his entire life in this town and went from being nobody to the David standing before the Shaw’s Goliath.

Through his company (and that was a mistake,” he admits. “It should have been a community group”) he took legal action against the town and the festival to halt the demolition of the historic Queen Street theatre and three other heritage buildings.

Shaw wanted to erect a 53,000-square-foot edifice hulking above the main drag and extending half a block in contravention of every heritage district rule. The Town of NOTL voted to allow it. Municipal staff accommodated it. Colaneri said no.

He argued the complex was in dire contravention of provincial guidelines and the town’s own rules. The challenge, then an appeal of his initial defeat, delayed the project for months. Colaneri lost. The Shaw won. The court said Nicholas’ company was not directly involved and lacked standing. So the action was eventually dismissed.

“Tim Jennings (Shaw’s CEO) has told donors, media and the community that the court confirmed the town’s processes were thorough,” says Colaneri. “The court did not make such a finding. It expressly assumed serious justiciable issues existed.”

Colaneri claims no preservation costs were ever determined or placed into evidence. He points to the conflict of interest created by the lord mayor sitting on the Shaw’s governing board.

“As you stated many times,” he told me, “the Shaw Foundation holds over $39 million in endowment while claiming it could not afford preservation. Approximately $30 million in funding remains unconfirmed.”

But why would he do this? Why divert time and money away from building affordable cottage bungalows to poke the NOTL establishment?

“Queen Street will never be the same,” he says. “The change might not be tomorrow, but watch out 15 years from now, when we won’t have heritage any longer. This sets a precedent, so developers like me will be building things to new heights. This will change everything — and we already have big issues, like traffic. We will never be the same. Heritage will be gone.”

Colaneri not only lost the court fight but was ordered to pay legal costs the Shaw and the municipality incurred. He says he offered to drop all further action if those costs were removed. He was rejected. And that may have been a mistake on the part of his opponents.

“Do they think that 60 grand is enough to scare me off? For somebody else, it might be. But I don’t back down from bullies, even if this hurts me in the long run. I am not so focussed on the future that I’m not going to do the right thing now.”

And what can one man do? Maybe get elected? As the lord mayor?

“I don’t like politics, but I’m in it now. I’m not a politician. I build houses. But many people have asked me to run, and it would be disrespectful to them not to consider it. To be honest, the system’s broken. It needs to be rebroken so it can be rebuilt properly. To be honest, I don’t think anybody who likes the way things are would want me in that position.”

Nonetheless, Nicholas Colaneri will pass this by his mom. His friends.

“I want my family on board. And the community. The last think I ever want is for people to think this guy just had a political agenda all the time. That’s why he did this thing.”

“But no. Hard no. I did this because it was the right thing to do. Period.”

Garth Turner is a NOTL resident, journalist, author, wealth manager and former federal MP and minister. garth@garth.ca