This whole story reads like a Shakespearian tragedy, with two branches of the same family feuding, but instead of a family it’s Nissan dealerships and instead of duels to the death its keying cars and instead of being set in Verona or wherever it’s in Orilla, a town about two hours from Toronto, Canada. In this town, the general manager of one Nissan dealership was caught keying multiple cars at another Nissan dealership. When will this senseless dealership-on-dealership violence end?
Douglas Ross is the 59-year-old general manager of Barrie Nissan, located in Barrie, Ontario, a neighboring town to Orilla, and also the person identified in surveillance videos repeatedly and methodically keying and scratching brand-new Nissans at Experience Nissan:
The first incident happened in November, after Experience Nissan posted a photo on Instagram of a row of sold cars by the side of their building. A few days later, staff found that those cars had all been vandalized, with long scratches along their sides.
After a similar incident, Experience Nissan installed surveillance cameras, which is how Ross ended up on video. Overall, the damage Ross inflicted on the cars is in the tens of thousands of dollars.
The general manager of Experience Nissan, Krista Kemp, actually knew Ross, as the Canadian Nissan dealership community is pretty tight. She’d even attended Nissan events with him. Talking to CTV News Barrie, Kemp said
“I went to Mexico on a Nissan plant meeting and sat beside him the entire day and talked to him, and I never would have thought this of this person.”
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What makes one general manager turn on another? It’s a good question.
Kemp notes that Barrie has a population “five times” the size of Orilla, and she never really considered her dealership to be in direct competition with Barrie Nissan.
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Orilla OPP have charged Ross with a charge of mischief over $5,000 for each of the three incidents of vandalism. Ross has been released and has a court date in February.
I reached out to Barrie Nissan, who declined to comment on the case, and left a message for Krista Kemp at Experience Nissan. We’ll update if we hear back.
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