Denis Dimitrakopoulos shuffles to the dining room table in his Commissioners Road home, waving sheets of paper stapled together as he approaches.

“Why do they want to stop me when I have these?” he says. “Why do they want to stop me when I give my money to charity.”

The owner of Metro Park, a business the city accuses of opening illegal pop-up parking lots on properties belonging to city businesses near Budweiser Gardens, is so angered by what he believes is an unfair charge, his gold necklace adorned with a large ship’s wheel, shakes as he speaks.

“I got permission from all of them. I can show you letters right now,” he said. “The city comes now after 15 years and asks why I don’t have a licence.”

He has operated lots on those sites without an issue and he maintains he has letters that give him approval for a lot at Hanford Tires Automotive Service on ­Ridout Street.

With those letters are receipts from the London Health Sciences Centre Foundation, to which he donates, he adds.

But Mike Roi, manager at Hanford, denies he has permission for the lot, and if he ever did, the downtown auto repair shop would not allow it anymore.

“I would like to see that, to my knowledge, nothing has been issued to him,” Roi said of the letter. “It’s like Uber and the taxi business. There are a lot of parking lot owners in London paying licence fees and taxes for permits and this is a fly-by-night guy.”

Dimitrakopoulos was contacted this week by London police and told he will be charged with trespassing if he opens another pop-up lot on private property.

He has promised to end the practice — for now.

“Police threatened me. I say OK, I won’t have parking lots anymore. I will wait for the city to give me temporary parking,” he said.

He has spoken to a lawyer about getting his licence issues straightened out, he added.

Dimitrakopoulos has received a summons and been ticketed and the matter is before the courts, said Annette Drost, manager of municipal law enforcement services for the city.

The city cracked down this spring after it received complaints about the business.

“We looked at it and found he was operating in several locations without a licence,” she said, adding complaints came from customers and other businesses that have

licences.

“You can speed every day for 15 years, but if you get a ticket, you can’t say, ‘I have done this for a long time.’ It will not wash.”

Drost would like to see a list of Dimitrakopoulos’ properties, to see if he has licences for them.

As for the letters, one states, “I give authority to Metro Park to control parking of vehicles in our lot at 337 Ridout St.,” which he says is signed by Peter Hanford.

“We charge $5 for basketball, $10 for hockey,” and the competition charges more, said ­Dimitrakopoulos.

“The people love us.”

ndebono@postmedia.com

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