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After eight years of quiet, low-key, canoe and kayak tours of the Humber River, Ted Cordina's business has been shut down by the city and ordered to pay a $38 per hour permit fee to use Kings Mill Park as an entrance point to the Humber River.

Though Cordina had been using the river at no charge for years, his business, Toronto Canoe and Kayak Adventures, ran into trouble when he erected a canopy tent in the park this summer to greet his customers. The kayakers would meet Cordina and his trailer of kayaks below Old Mill subway station and promptly enter the waterway.

Cordina said he contacted Mayor David Miller's office asking for help getting permits for the tent, but his queries were forwarded to the permit enforcement office. City officials then visited the park to take pictures and ask that he pay a permit fee at $38 per hour.

According to the Toronto Municipal Code, "while in a park, no person shall practice, carry on, conduct or solicit for a trade, occupation, business or profession." Cordina said that the permit fee is a business charge for use of the park in general, regardless of whether it's the use of land or water.

Toronto Canoe and Kayak Adventures has been classified under a new bylaw which allows the city to issue permits to recreational companies that use the parks on a temporary basis, charging them the $38 per hour rate, said Cordina. Calls to the city's licensing department were not returned by deadline to confirm this.

Parkdale-High Park Councillor Bill Saundercook said that kayaking the Humber River is an excellent experience but said a kayaking business has to follow permit and safety rules.

"(Cordina) has to work out those details - I'm here to support him - but he has to understand that those rules are important to the safety of all," said Saundercook.

Cordina says it would cost the company almost $300,000 to set up a canopy tent for five-months-a-year, eight-hours-a-day, at each of its six access points across the city: the Humber River, Sunnyside Beach, Cherry Beach, the Rouge River, and two east end beaches.

"How come the car companies are getting hundreds of millions of dollars from the government when they're a dying industry that is bad for the environment, while budding recreational companies are being financially burdened by the city?" asked Cordina.

Gary Wilkins, the Humber River watershed specialist at the Toronto Region Conservation Authority said, "Generally speaking public use and recreational use of the natural environment is a good thing, but it has to be done in a respectful way to other users, private ownership, and the natural environment."

"More people using it would probably bring more education, more awareness, and more appreciation for the natural environment," said Wilkins.