Help Us Save our Food Truck Business
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Background & Context
We are Picard, Andrew, and Jeffrey, the co-owners of Tochi, a local small business that’s known for our unique dessert: the Mini Mochi HK-Style French Toast served with Ice Cream!
Tochi is a business that was created by students and we still focus on providing great work experiences for students today.
Our small business is facing a legal battle. Firework Productions Ltd., the owner of the Richmond Night Market, has filed a lawsuit against us, putting our food truck and dessert business at risk. We’re raising funds to cover legal costs as we fight to defend ourselves in court.
The first two years of our journey began at the Richmond Night Market where we worked tirelessly to bring smiles to our customers and grow our business with a product that symbolizes our cultural roots. We had a great experience sharing our beloved desserts with everyone at the night market.
In 2024, we were forced to shift our business to a food truck-based operation, as our business was no longer welcome at the Richmond Night Market.
We were featured by networks like Global News, CBC, CTV and Daily Hive/Dished where we were interviewed to share our experience with navigating these difficult changes over the past year.
Despite sharing our personal experiences, Firework Productions Ltd., the entity that owns and operates the Richmond Night Market, claims that the statements we made in the media are defamatory and have decided to sue us.
Please see the articles below for the context of our stories regarding the Richmond Night Market:
Other past features:
Legal Conflict
Recently, Firework Productions Ltd., the company that owns and operates the Richmond Night Market, began a defamation lawsuit against us. They are claiming that we had defamed them by making statements in the media and “allowing” people to comment negative things about the Richmond Night Market on Tochi’s social media pages, rather than deleting people’s comments and opinions.
In late 2024, they began sending threatening legal notices to us, demanding that we take down our related social media content and other people’s comments. They also demanded that we issue a public apology regarding what we had shared. We did not comply with this, as we stand by the experiences we shared, as well as the right for our audience to voice their opinions. Now, they are seeking to bring us to court.
We only sought to tell our story, and our experiences with the Richmond Night Market, and we believe the things that we said are important to the general public and other future food vendors to be aware of. We maintain that what we said to the media was not defamatory, but was our expression of opinion, and that it is inappropriate for Firework Productions Ltd. (the entity that owns the Richmond Night Market) to carry out a lawsuit in this manner.
We are also countersuing Firework for their use of Tochi’s copyrighted brand and artwork in their Skytrain advertisements last year in which our likeness and photos were being advertised as if we were to be present in the 2024 season, despite not having us return as a vendor.
Tochi is a small business, owned and run by 3 fresh university graduates. When we weren’t able to return to the Richmond Night Market, we lost 100% of our business that day, as our business existed solely at the Market. All of our hard work was gone in an instant. We later reinvested all we had into a food truck to be able to continue running our business. It has been a tough and enduring journey.
Raising Contributions
Tochi is looking to raise contributions for our legal fees. A lawyer is expensive, and fighting a lawsuit over many months will be even more expensive. If you stand by our story and our fight for our business, we would really appreciate your support.
For reference, standard lawyer fees can cost us anywhere from $250 to $450 per hour, which is difficult for any small business to endure.
We stand by our voice and our lived experiences, and we are fighting back against this lawsuit. We refuse to be silenced. It would mean a lot to us if you would be able to support us in any way, whether it is by making a small contribution to our legal fees, or by raising awareness about our story.
All funds raised would go solely and directly to our legal fees in regards to our conflict with Firework Productions Ltd. In the event that there are any leftover funds after legal fees, we will be donating them to our local Vancouver food bank.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for being on this page and by paying attention to our story. It truly means a lot to us.
Organizer
Picard Yiu
Organizer
Vancouver, BC