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Read more from Robyn Urback …

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Q: Did it ever dawn on you that your décor might be an issue?

A: No, we always take pride in having bilingual aspects all over our store and making sure that it’s 90% French. We do have a little bit of English because 95% of our client base in Westmount is English.

Q: Is your other location much different?

A: If you go to our store on Laurier, which is in a French community, we have zero English represented. It’s all French. At our English location because we do have English clients, we felt that it wasn’t the end of the world if we put up some anglo text.

Q: What was your reaction when you were confronted by the OQLF?

A: That it was artistic. It was decorative pieces that we picked up along the way of our travels with our family, pieces of our heritage, of our background. It was a place that we go in Maine that we picked it up. We do have other pieces of décor in the store from that same place. We kind of like to have a vintage feel.

Q: The name of your store is English, has that ever been an issue with the OQLF?

A: No, we don’t have the apostrophe on the outside of our store, so they can’t really come after us for that. It just says “Mandys.” And it says “Salades Gourmands” in French underneath it.

Q: You seem to be shocked by the OQLF’s response to your décor, that it attacks the way you run your store. How do you feel about the French aspect of things?

A: We love it! We have a lot of French speaking clients, we have a lot of French speaking employees, and we have a lot of French speaking suppliers. We’re very proud to be in Montreal. We love that it is a bilingual community and culture. Mandy and I are both very bilingual. We have Quebec francophone members of our extended family. It is a part of the richness of living in Montreal in terms of its culture, so I just think this is a very unfortunate turn of events.