News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.
If you’ve ever been on the question and answer site Quora, you’ll know about the endless and fascinating rabbit holes that exist there.
Recently, the question, ‘What’s wrong with Toronto?’ was asked. Several people have submitted answers but this gentleman called, Michael Barnard has nailed it most succinctly and in my mind accurately. While not specifically about Weston / Mount Dennis, Mr. Barnard’s answer goes a long way towards explaining our current state. Enjoy.
City Council will ask the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to pull the liquor licences of establishments that have “been the scene of gun violence or where patrons have been in the possession of handguns or where the police have found handguns on the premises”.
Frances Nunziata said that his measure is necessary because
They’re open all night, it turns into a booze can or it turns into an after hours club, and they party on the streets and the next thing you know there’s guns and there’s gun violence….
They suspend their license for two or three weeks, and then they reopen….
People are afraid to walk down the street when they have that amount of violence.
Start video at 1:24:00 if it doesn’t do so automatically.
I’m pretty sure none of this is true. I come home pretty late on Friday nights, and I often ride my bike from strangling class. Of course, I’m not everywhere all the time, but I’ve never once seen a party on the streets. (Nor have I seen guns or gun violence).
The data, such as they are, back me up. There have been two shootings in Weston in 2019. Neither happened after hours. One happened in broad daylight, outside a convenience store—perhaps we could pull their lottery-tickets?
Nunziata’s efforts to clamp down on gun violence should be applauded. But this is neither a real effort nor clamping down. It’s a waste of time.
Worse, it’s an embarrassing slander against our town. Nobody wants to live in a place like she describes—but her riding is nothing like she describes it.
If Nunziata were serious about preventing crime and keeping kids safe, she could have funded after-school programs at libraries.
The three men accused of the murder of Jarryl Hagley, in Weston’s Pizza Pizza, are on trial.
Shakiyl Shaw, his twin brother Lenneil Shaw and Mohamed Ali-Nur are alleged to have shot Hagley, 17, in 2016. A fourth man, Winston Poyser, who owned the car used and was present at the time is testifying against the three others.
Hagley was shot and killed in Pizza Pizza when two men burst in and started firing a shotgun and a handgun. A third man was outside as a lookout. Their escape was caught on video afterwards.
Hagley had been involved in an ongoing dispute with the men, according to police. He was also known to police.
Readers with excellent memories may recall that jury selections in York South–Weston were among the most broken in the city. Far more white people than visible minorities are selected for jury duty because the juror’s lists are drawn from property registries, leaving out “renters, boarders, students, seniors, spouses who are not named on property titles, transient and low-income people, Indigenous people and those unable to afford property in a red-hot real estate market. ”
The Toronto Star investigated, and found that 95% of York South–Weston residents were not on the jury list.
That will soon change. The Star writes that Ontario is abandoning property registries as the source of jurors; instead it will move to the OHIP database, starting in 2020.
Hop right over to Eglinton Flats today between 12 and 2, and you might catch the Easter Bunny, who will be visiting Topham Pond for an egg hunt.
Only six weeks after a house collapsed in Scarborough, the city has ordered it demolished. Yet the two houses at 2274 Weston Road have been collapsing for more than a decade and nothing has been done.
According to The Star, “Demolition is ordered only when a home is ‘structurally unsafe and it is unreasonable to carry out repairs to resolve the safety condition,’ said [a city spokesperson] in an email.
At least one of the abandoned houses on Weston Road is certainly structurally unsafe—its roof has completely collapsed. The other building is in slightly better condition, but looks very bad.
These two abandoned houses make me angry. To start with, they’re unsafe. They’re firetraps and accessible to pests, children, and the ill-intended.
But even if nothing bad were to come of them, they would bother me because they show that someone—or many people—don’t care about our town, its beauty, and the people who live here.
And, of course, they’re on a busy street. Everyone knows.
Frances Nunziata’s office told me that the owner ” would be submitting a permit for demolition in the coming weeks.”
We’ll see.
The Easter Egg hunt will, of course, be SUNDAY, April 21 from 10 am to 12 noon.
You can drop off plastic eggs, chocolate eggs, Easter candy, or coffee and tea at Squibbs, at 55 Queens Drive, or at 69 MacDonald. They’d also appreciate an RSVP, I know, to plan for the craziness.