By Bill Taylor

Santa’s elves have been out on Queen Street, just east of University Avenue across from the Canadian Opera Company, earmarking eighteen spots on the sidewalk for Sunday’s Santa Claus Parade. We don’t recall seeing this in previous years, and a quick walk along a chunk of the parade route reveals no other reserved spaces. With people customarily arriving a couple of hours ahead of the 12:30 p.m. start time, it’s hard to imagine how this will play out: will someone simply wishing to sit on the sidewalk without a lawn chair be allowed to do so? Will they have to surrender their spot if someone with a lawn chair shows up late? What are the parameters for a “lawn chair,” anyway? Does a deckchair count? What if someone hauls a Muskoka chair—or a La-Z-Boy recliner—to Queen Street, with a photograph to prove it used to sit on their lawn? What about the sidewalk to either side of the “lawn-chair parking only” spots? Will people be permitted to stand there? And who’s going to enforce the whole thing? A paid-duty cop? On whose dime? Santa’s? He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows where you’ll be sitting…
Photo by Bill Taylor/Torontoist