Closed butcher shop in North Bay leads to rotting meat, bad odours and a lot of flies

More than a year after it closed, Bavarian Meats on Wallace Road in North Bay is swarmed in flies and a very strong odour blankets the area.

The business has been closed since fall 2021, but nearby residents are getting fed up dealing with the bug and horrible smells.

"It's been quite bad with the smell, and the flies are terrible," said one gentleman who lives directly across from the former meat shop.

"When you open the door, the horse flies come in. The smell, if the winds coming from across the street, it's bad."

One woman visiting her parents on Wallace Road on Wednesday told CTV News it's starting to ruin their family plans.

"We got together on Father's Day, my parents live across from Bavarian, and we went to sit out on their back yard," she said.

"The bugs drove us crazy and we realized the smell, it was that obnoxious we couldn't even sit outside."

North Bay Deputy Mayor Tanya Vrebosch said the situation is unique and there are no easy solutions under municipal regulations.

"It's a very unique civil matter that nobody has jurisdiction to just go into a private business or dwelling without cause," said Vrebosch.

"There's no building code issue, everything that we tried was not working ... It's now to the point where we're saying shame on the owners, go and clean it up."

City bylaw has issued a compliance order under the City of North Bay's clean yards bylaw.

The order, signed June 14, said the outdoor garbage bins have a bad odour and there's a foul odour coming from the building due to rotting meats.

A business owner nearby to the former store said the smell and the flies are starting to affect the way he operates, and he said no one has been in the building in months.

As for the neighbours, they want it cleaned up sooner rather than later.

"The longer it stays, the longer that meat rots in there, the worse it's going to get," one resident said.

CTV News reached out to Bavarian Meat multiple times and did not hear back.

The property is now owned by a company out of Oakville, but it's currently up for sale for just more than $1 million.