First incandescent light bulbs, now toilets: at the recommendation of David Miller, the Ontario government will consider banning conventional toilets to promote low-flush toilets. Low-flushies use only 6 litres of water per flush, while regular toilets will use anywhere from 13-25 litres to flush. Not only would the ban save Toronto 26 million litres of water per day, it would eliminate the need for $60 million in water and sewage-treatment capacity. Here's a ban everyone can feel good about, except Dave Barry.
Ontario Government Services Minister Gerry Phillips is such a buzzkill, man. The province banned government staff from using Facebook at work, along with YouTube, online poker and porn sites.
Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) is trying to figure out how to make nightclubs pay permits for taking up public sidewalk space with their lengthy lineups. "They use public facilities for marketing, for security and for queuing people so they can maximize their interior space and up their alcohol sales," says Vaughan. "Well, I'm sorry. You can't use the public space for private gain that way without the city getting its fair share, and also regulating it so it's done in a responsible way." Obviously, nightclub owners are pissed off.
When I told an inquisitive receptionist that I was an art history student at a dentist appointment earlier this month, she immediately asked me what I thought of the ROM Crystal. I honestly told her that I supported the idea of integrating modern architecture into older buildings that desperately require renovation. My response unleashed an epic rant from behind the counter about everything from the horrors of I.M. Pei's addition to the Louvre to Transformation AGO. I told her that I politely disagreed, but if I had taken the time to really give her a piece of my mind, it might have sounded like Joey Slinger's article, "It's okay to think it's ugly: No one says you have to love the ROM addition".
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Ugh, just when I was starting to like the guy. Nightclubs are a favorite target of politicians; here in New York, CCTV cameras are now mandatory inside all clubs for police review. Soon nobody under 21 will be allowed inside any venue that serves alcohol.
I already see parallels in Toronto, where Vaughan said, "We wouldnt have security cameras in the Entertainment District if people were behaving themselves."
Implying that he does, in fact, support the cameras. There were two homicides in clubland last year. Two.
I don't know if anybody at City Hall realizes this, but running any kind of nightlife business is hard. It's not that profitable, events frequently lose money, clubs close left and right, and most of the time promoters are just running events as a labor of love. There are very few successful nightlife businesspeople, and most parties and club nights are thrown for the love of the music.
Couple that with the police, neighbors, bylaw enforcement and politicians breathing down your neck all the time, and you can see why the northeast corner of Richmond and Peter is literally deserted.
Please, back off nightlife, everyone, everywhere.
Regarding the low-flush toilets; I have recently moved to a new apt. and the toilet it horrible. Where one flush was usually enough .. now I have to wait and press the lever 2 or 3 times before the stuff is out of sight. Hmmm >> 6*3=18 and thus we are back at square one.
Vaughan's motives on the night club tax are very transparent. This is about making the home and condo owners happy by killing the entertainment industry and making the streets unwelcoming to young people.
In fact, Vaughan went so far as to declare his dislike for 20 year olds: "The line-ups are really loud ... a bunch of 20-year-olds who don't worry about forcing an old lady or child out onto the street," he said. "They have a sense of entitlement." (Toronto Sun, April 29, 2007).
Sure people are out to have a good time and nobody mistakes clubland for the library but that generalization is insulting and disingenuous.
First, you can count the number of old ladies and children that are making their way down Richmond after 10PM on a Friday night on one hand.
Second, clubs are one of the few places that youth culture is permitted in spades. Yeah, it can involve things that a middle-aged politician can't relate to and sometimes things get a bit out of hand but where else are 70,000 youth going to go instead? I promise the councillor that they won't don tuxitos and go to the opera (which, conveniently, won't be subject to Vaughan's wrath.)
If Vaughan gets his way it'll mean either shifting the problem to another area or starting a big underground party culture where booze cans and the like are set up in residential neighbourhoods throughout the city. Neither is a good option.
Downtown is the best place to have a club district because the majority of the surrounding area is office buildings; without people on the streets at night the area would become barren and actually unsafe; and with all the alcohol consumption a high volume of TTC service is incredibly important.
I'm all for enforcing the laws on the books when it's necessary but this stinks of wedge politics where the victims are the 99% of youth who are having good clean fun.
And here I was thinking that Adam Vaughan would leave his wedge at home and bring a new kind of politics to City Hall.
My experiences with low-flush toilets have not been positive. Unfortunately I have to agree with Gregg and Dave Barry.
I have now replaced all (3) toilets in my house with low-flushies, and my sister just replaced hers. Our old tiolet was a 25 litre monster, and yes stuff went down, but we did alot of homework and the city has a whole website on which toilets are actually passing the 'turd test', so the new toilets are actually better (and still improving). But you have to be willing to spend a bit more money. I think landlords crap out and buythe cheapest ones because they will actually turn a profit on the installation itself. Do I save on my water bill? I don't know, I'm not on a metre. We did it because the city of Toronto's biggest carbon debt is actually the pumps that put water in our houses. Oil for water.
Gregg - I've been there my friend. My last apartment had a low-flow toilet too, but the landlord decided to put a brick in the tank as well so I was flushing up to 5 times as should have been necessary. I pulled the brick and it worked better, but not always.
re: Vaughan (disclosure: I'm not a club goer) Right on. It's the same principle behind my objections to Vodka manufacturers using the sidewalk to advertise and leaving the city to foot (pun?) the bill. It doesn't matter if only a handful of people are on the sidewalk but *not* going into a club, they have just as much right to be there as anyone and shouldn't be forced to the gutter or across the street because club lines are 3 people wide. Also, standing in line is not part of "youth culture", the interior of the club is for that. If this proposed tax means navigable sidewalks and fewer daytime deadzones downtown, at the cost of losing $15 door fees to listen to the same remixes of Madonna and Jay Z, all the better. A vibrant healthy night life would mean people out on the streets doing things, not waiting for permission.
I want to know why the province banning Facebook in their office is newsworthy... are you serious? is it that slow of a news day? So the government wants to cut back on employee distractions, is that such a big deal?
No suprise to see this hypocracy here, the subversion of public space by commercial interests is a serious problem right up until the point where the commerical interests are things you like then "poof" magic happens and it's no longer a problem.
The funniest part is I bet you don't even see this as hyporcitical or realize that it's exactly this kind of attitude that dooms the "public space" movement to remain on the fringes.
vaughn can't be serious ...
10pm on friday or sat, the only people wanderign those streets and using those sidewalks are people going to the clubs in the first place.
if people are blocking my way i walk around or force my way through. but for thse in wheelchairs or such i could see this as a problem, otherwise there is no problem.
also:
"There's no intention on my part to start charging the film festival or the Royal Alex or the Tarragon Theatre." (because their patrons line up but only for a "short time".) bull pucky i say!!! lineups are lineups. charge em all or charge none of em!
what a joke.
Re: integration of modern structures ... there's ways to do it. I love how the AGO seems to be coming along, and I love the glass pyramids at the Louvre, but the ROM Crystal, clashing with a lovely Edwardian stone building, just feels ugly, which is too bad because I think I would've been closer to loving the crystal if it was allowed to stand alone. Maybe it's a time thing -- in that it'll get better later -- but I guess we'll see.
just to clarify, my rag on the Facebook banning wasn't meant to be against the fine people of Torontoist, more so at the Hype-Machine that is Canadian press and how much focus they're been giving it. I don't find it a big deal and don't know why "credible" news sources have been making that story its main headline. Is it news worthy... maybe, is it headline worthy, definitely not.
I was fascinated a while back by those new-fangled compost toilets. They're up really high and have this drawer-thing where the poop kinda turns to dirt that you empty every few months or so, which surprisingly doesn't stink. There's also a separate flush for urine, which goes to a different part, I think. The "soil" that you dump after a while is a great fertilizer. I also think the home ones can only handle a few poops per day, but I that really a problem?
I'm pretty sure there are also more advanced, non-self-contained models that can be built into a new house where you don't have to worry about the "poop drawer."
The Facebook ban is a bit short-sighted. For some jobs it may be nothing but a distraction but for people in communications, policy, issues management, stakeholder relations or a political office, Facebook, YouTube and those like it are very relevant in terms of outreach and evaluating public opinion, especially among a younger demographic.
I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that the stakeholders that I deal with will be up on Facebook by the end of the year -- and I know that there are already groups on Facebook that staff in various ministries should be monitoring as a matter of being relevant to the people they serve.