A while back, Toronto Community Housing Corp. CEO Eugene Jones vowed to take action against contractors who could be bilking the company out of money. Well, we might just have our first winners. TCHC is looking to get police involved in two cases that have come out in a third-party review of its dealings with outside contractors.

If the recent lack of public complaints against Mayor Rob Ford has left you sitting around bored, twiddling your thumbs, perhaps devoting too many seconds to pondering when popsicle season will begin in earnest, consider the drought over. Some outraged citizen has launched a complaint with the City’s licensing department after Ford stuck magnets on cars at Tuesday’s Etobicoke community council meeting. Apparently someone takes littering by-laws very seriously. As do the #TOpoli folks, who have been calling it “Magnetgate.” Another thing that happened yesterday: the prime minister’s chief of staff bailed out a senator with a massive personal cheque.

It’s universally accepted among journalists that any story about traffic lights basically comes with a built-in pun lede, and this gem about the City’s public works committee giving the green light to a plan to better synchronize traffic signals is no exception. The decision came after some debate at committee, where it was revealed that, among other things, there is no red-light conspiracy out to get you when you’re driving and already late for work.

Less than a week away from the big city council casino showdown, one more councillor has made up her mind. Michelle Berardinetti (Ward 35, Scarborough Southwest) is adding herself to the “no” camp, at least when it comes to a casino downtown. As more councillors declare their opposition, the possibility of a casino downtown becomes more faint. Because after all, we know councillors prefer saying no to things.

The war on scooters and mopeds has begun. Police are now ticketing motorized two-wheeled vehicles parked on sidewalks, and apparently that’s not sitting too well with people who own those vehicles and park them on sidewalks. E-bikes are notably absent from the police crackdown, however, so they’re probably now your best bet if you want to have it both ways.

A classic Monkey’s Paw situation is playing out at City Hall right now. So you want to open up a debate around paying for transit expansion in the region? Well, you’ll get that, but it’ll come with multiple days of debate, tangential arguments, and calls to modify the City’s agreement with Metrolinx to spend more non-existent money on subway expansions into Scarborough and elsewhere. Councillors spent yesterday debating various aspects of transit—against the city manager’s wishes—until they were blue in the face (seriously, they quit to watch the hockey game). And they’ll be back at it today.

Toronto isn’t the only city second-guessing the Metrolinx plan now that the time to put up or shut up is approaching. Brampton mayor Susan Fennell is suggesting an alternative to an LRT line that would connect her city with Mississauga, and which has been at the centre of Mississauga’s transit demands. Fennell is also criticizing the proposed fees and taxes on Metrolinx’s transit funding shortlist. Apparently it’s never too late to come out against a potentially unpopular political move.

Given the length of the transit debate at Toronto City Hall, maybe it’s for the best that councillors decided against also opening up a debate on whether Toronto should get a casino now, and instead waiting for the special meeting on it later this month. The situation at City Hall seems one step away from Lord of the Flies as it is. Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) isn’t giving up hope on a casino vote this week, though, so never say never.

Of course, all this talk about expanding transit to fight gridlock might be a load of bunk anyway. How else can you explain why three of the city’s 10 most clogged up intersections outside the downtown core are in areas covered by the Sheppard subway line? And don’t say, “Because nobody uses the Sheppard line,” because we’re sure if we ever went up there, we’d probably see some people riding those trains. The City’s Transportation Services division released the list as part of a report on how it plans to fight traffic congestion by improving traffic light systems, among other things.

A Malvern playground that was burned down the other day will be rebuilt with money from a bunch of corporate donations that have come in since news of the razing broke. Police are still looking for the person or people who burned the playground. If you know who did it, man, you’ve really got some jerk friends.

That small crash you heard outside last night was the sound of the wheels starting to fall off the Toronto Maple Leafs’ bandwagon, after the Leafs got smoked by the Boston Bruins. It was bad…so bad even Peter Mansbridge took a shot (and scored, just like Boston did four times). Torontonians can still brag about having way more expensive ticket prices than the Bruins though, so that’s something. Meanwhile, Mayor Rob Ford has confirmed Boston’s mayor won’t be making a friendly playoff bet with him. Ostensibly it’s because of all that’s happened in that city over the last few weeks, although we’re pretty sure Thomas Menino just feels bad taking such easy money.

Speaking of the mayor, another citizen has filed a complaint against him for his behaviour, this time in response to something Ford said on his weekly radio show. Lawyer Viresh Fernando has complained to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council after Ford threatened to read out the names of all councillors who support transit taxes every week on his show. It’s a little unclear what exactly is wrong with re-hashing information already in the public sphere, especially when regular listeners of the show have probably already etched those names into their kitchen walls with steak knives anyway. On the other hand, it’s been weeks since this city had a good Ford scandal to talk about, so this will have to do.

Mark your calendars, stock up on popcorn and get ready to call in sick the day after Victoria Day, because May 21 will be the day the whole crazy casino debate finally comes to a head. The mayor has set a special council meeting/royal rumble that day just to discuss the issue, with the possibility of a few smaller card matches beforehand including the rumored return of Rey Mysterio Jr. Rogers TV is also reportedly considering offering its usual council live stream as a pay-per-view service, although the legal implications have not yet been fully explored.

After witnessing defeats in Toronto and on Parliament Hill, Mississauga councillors are giving up on enforcing a shark fin ban of their own. Let’s make sure we remember that the next time they get all huffy over how Toronto isn’t the only big, important city in the region.

The mayor’s executive committee might have decided to take the bold, visionary move of twiddling its thumbs for a month on the issue of new taxes and fees to pay for transit, but that’s not sitting well with other city councillors. Karen Stintz (Ward 16, Eglinton-Lawrence), a one-time ally of Mayor Rob Ford, came out swinging at Ford for the decision, while others are already starting to plot how council can force the issue. Whatever ends up happening, with political intrigue of this calibre, you’d be a sucker to try and lower your blood pressure with a vacation in the month of May.

Speaking of paying for transit, remember how we Torontonians always love ragging on the 905? It turns out that can work both ways, especially when they’re armed with some good old fashioned political buffoonery. Mississauga councillors took aim at their neighbours to the east as they debated their own approach to transit revenue tools. Councillors voted to recommend nine funding tools to Metrolinx, but shied away from raising property taxes and transit fares. Meanwhile, back in Toronto: this.

All that transit expansion talk especially rings true when you’re crammed onto a streetcar with someone’s elbow in your back. Which might be why customer satisfaction with the TTC hasn’t improved in the last year, despite a renewed focus on customer service and changes such as new trains and cleaner washrooms. Turns out people would still rather just get from point A to point B without feeling like they’re in a game of human Tetris.

The saga of the violent bank robbery that made news earlier this week has very likely come to an end. Police say they’ve arrested a second suspect in connection with the robbery, this one presumably the gunman who shot two people. Among his charges is attempted murder.

If there’s one good thing to come from the miserable, cold weather we’ve been having (and let’s face it, there probably isn’t more than one), it’s that we’re not breathing as much crap into our lungs as we have in the past. In fact, a new report from the provincial government claims Toronto’s air quality has gotten better over the last 10 years, due in large part to decisions like moving gas plants to Sarnia phasing out coal-fired electricity plants and requiring cars to meet Drive Clean standards. The cooler summers we’ve been having are also helping to mitigate smog, although if things don’t heat up soon, we might start burning our own coal just to remember what warm weather feels like.

For a long time, Torontonians have operated under the assumption that every other city in the country hates us, or is at least jealous of us. But that attitude might soon turn into to mere embarrassment (or maybe it has already) or condescension, at least within the GTA. What else can you make of Toronto being the only city at a CivicAction mayors’ event to speak out against the revenue tools everyone else seems to agree are necessary to get transit moving in the city? There is always the possibility that we’re right and everyone else is wrong, but these days, we’re giving Oakville the benefit of the doubt. They’ve earned it.

Mayor Rob Ford wasn’t at that CivicAction event, but he did find the time to make Toronto a better place by temporarily becoming the city’s most highly paid graffiti remover (although you never know with those union gigs). Ford and Councillor Gary Crawford (Ward 44, Scarborough Southwest) helped paint over some graffiti at an east end Pizza Pizza to make way for a mural. Of course, not everyone is convinced Ford’s efforts are actually curbing graffiti.

Ford also came out against the City giving any more money to the ailing Bixi bike-sharing system. This comes after news that the service is having trouble making loan payments, which prompted Cycle Toronto to call for the City to take it over. So just in case you weren’t sure, Rob Ford isn’t interested in being in the cycling business.

Porter Airlines president Robert Deluce is continuing his negotiations through the media to get jets running out of the island airport. The latest comes in the form of a Star editorial board interview in which Deluce says he’s not looking for the ban on jets at the airport to be lifted, but rather for the planes he wants to use to be exempted from that rule. Meanwhile, the airline has started calling households with a highly biased automated phone survey on the jets, so you can expect a poll showing that most Torontonians support Porter’s plans to pop up in the next few weeks.

As the Maple Leafs prepare to possibly enter a stage in the hockey season they haven’t encountered in years, Toronto’s ‘other’ winter team, the Toronto Raptors, have closed out their latest disappointing season with a pretty meaningless win over the Boston Celtics.

It’s horrible outside, and it’s going to continue to be horrible all freakin’ day. Apparently the storm started in California and, like so many other things from California, clearly nobody considered the climate difference before sending it up our way. Seriously though, it’s going to be horrible all day.

If you’ve got an old, dilapidated bike you’re prone to leaving locked up in various parts of the city for extended periods of time, take heed: the City is starting a big abandoned bike removal foofaraw over the next few weeks. It’s all part of the City’s spring cleaning initiative, which encourages Torontonians to get out there and make up for being horrible litterbugs over the past few months. No word yet on whether smokers will be scooping up all the butts they tossed in now-melted snowbanks.

A new report, out today, looks into the economic challenges facing the GTA in the coming years. For the most part, it’s the same points that have been tossed around for what seems like ages, with little to show for them. But it never hurts to bring another voice into the region’s collective wake-up call.

Success knows no bounds, so it only makes sense that a school program that has managed to attract 18 students for next fall would start to be rolled out across the city. Then again, maybe we’re being unfair to a novel curriculum in its infancy. Perhaps someday the TDSB’s Africentric program could engage a lot of young people. However, misquoting the film Field of Dreams might not be the best way to argue that point.

Have you ever helped someone and thought that, while the feeling you get from aiding a fellow human being is great and all, you should maybe be compensated in some more tangible way? Well you’re in luck, because Toronto police are now handing out positive tickets for good samaritans. While the apparently fast food-centred rewards might draw criticism from some people, let’s face it: a warm feeling in your heart is good, but a warm slice of pizza is better.

So, that local baseball team with all its fresh new faces and playoff hopes is now 0-2. That sound you hear is the collective deflation of our hopes and dreams.

Mayor Rob Ford had a pretty major victory at City Hall yesterday, though: getting a burger stand in Nathan Phillips Square. And that’s all we’re going to say about that.

Some more details have come out in the investigation of last weekend’s Yorkdale mall shooting. However, some of the crucial information, such as who the shooters might have been and why shooting happened, are still a mystery. Meanwhile, the shootings continue with a 15-year-old boy shot last night in the Lawrence Heights area.

The head of the province’s Special Investigations Unit, the body that investigates police shootings among other things, is stepping down after five years on the job. Ian Scott isn’t yet saying why he’s leaving, so for the time being we’ll have to rely on wild speculation. And, go!

With the work-to-rule campaign and bitter labour dispute, it’s been a rough school year for teachers, parents, and kids in Ontario’s public elementary schools (although in all likelihood, it’s probably just meant more Xbox time for the kids). But it looks like that could be coming to a close soon, and not just because June’s coming up. Elementary teachers’ union head Sam Hammond outlined some of the gains the union has gotten in recent talks with the government. We could add a bit here outlining the reaction from the province’s political parties, but at this point you could probably just guess it yourself.

Have you ever been on a double-decker GO bus and worried the bus’s roof might get torn off as it attempted to go through a low-ceiling tunnel? Or did we lose you on “GO bus”? Either way, GO Transit is getting new, shorter buses that will be able to navigate many underpasses the current buses can’t handle. As usual, a spokesperson for the very tall could not be reached for comment.

In other news, it’s going to be kinda warmer today, and for the next few days. We have proof.

We all know how popular service fees are with Toronto’s mayor, but hopefully you’ll be able to swallow the approximately $3 more a month you’ll soon be getting dinged for on your hydro bill. Not like you have a choice, anyway, unless you go on some kind of ill-thought-out power strike. The money will partly go toward building a new transformer station downtown, which is needed to keep up with the energy demands of today’s young urban go-getters. We blame it on TiVo.

Opinions are almost certainly going to be flowing at the water cooler (or espresso machine or whatever) today about the not criminally responsible verdict in the trial of Richard Kachkar for the murder of police officer Ryan Russell. Some will say Kachkar didn’t realize what he was doing, others will maintain he knew what he was doing the whole time, while still others will cynically predict how long until the man is released from the hospital where he will eventually be treated. And amid all the back and forth, there’s a quite forward-thinking column from the Sun‘s Joe Warmington pleading for a better system for police to handle people with mental illnesses.

Speaking of police, the Toronto Police Services Board is ordering Chief Bill Blair to keep track in an annual public document of incidents where cops have lied on the witness stand. The motion comes just a few days after Blair sent out a strongly worded message to officers about misconduct, which means it was probably on the police board’s agenda for a while before that message went out.

The latest investigation from ombudsman (and Torontoist superhero of last year) Fiona Crean is, well, not all that sexy. But probably still important. Crean’s office examined problems where City staff made non-profit agencies pay more than they were supposed to for rent in City-owned buildings. The likelihood of this starting the kind of political shitstorm some of her previous forays have brought on is minimal.

Toronto and the rest of the GTA might not be getting a casino, or they probably kinda maybe might, according to Rod Phillips, CEO of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. However, Phillips admits none of the municipalities in the region have officially expressed an interest in a casino, which means OLG might have to start tapping some fourth-stringers pretty soon. Because once Vaughan says no, there aren’t a lot of places left to go.

After a ban on shark fin imports in Toronto was overturned, a nationwide ban at the parliamentary level looked like the only recourse for ban supporters. Well, some you win, and dim sum you lose (we totally stole that joke from Anthony Anderson in the otherwise forgettable film Romeo Must Die, and we’re not sorry). What any politician would have had to lose by voting in favour of the ban is beyond us, but that’s how it went.

City councillors are standing firm against outside pressure, defending their rights to meet with lobbyists whenever they want, because clearly that’s something that should be a top priority. The argument from councillor David Shiner (Ward 24, Willowdale) seems to be that if a lobbyist curfew were to be enacted, they would still meet after set hours, but in secret. Wish we’d tried that one on our parents when we were younger. The executive committee also voted to push back any debate around term limits for councillors, although proponents say the fight isn’t over.

Turns out Toronto probably won’t be getting a sweetheart deal to host a casino complex downtown after all, and that has a lot of folks unhappy. Not Mayor Rob Ford, though. He’s optimistic a new review of casino deals in municipalities across the province could result in more money for Toronto. The review is expected to arrive right around the same time the waste at City Hall shovels itself to the curve, the private sector builds a 20-line subway system for the City, and Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) willingly withdraws from public office.

All right, let’s get the first joke out of the way for this next one. Elephants eat peanuts. Planes serve peanuts. So wouldn’t it be funny if the Royal Canadian Air Force jet that could be flying the Toronto Zoo’s elephants to California’s PAWS Sanctuary actually served them peanuts? It would. Not everyone sees the funny side, though. In fact, board member and City councillor Gloria Linday-Luby (Ward 4, Etobicoke Centre) has sent a letter to the feds requesting that the RCAF not be involved because she and others still don’t support the move. Yeesh, if councillors can’t get over a few elephants, what are they going to do with something like the land transfer tax?

Funny we mention that, actually. The mayor’s executive committee voted yesterday to open up a debate around cutting a tenth of the land transfer tax. This is the Rob Ford story that has it all. Cutting City revenue? Check. Acting on a campaign promise three years into a four-year mandate? Check. Quote about how it won’t be a “boring summer,” despite a debate on the land transfer tax being just about the most boring thing ever? Oh yeah. Token reaction from council’s left? Yuh-huh. Vague talk about “finding the efficiencies,” as if the last couple of years never happened? Got that. Inevitable ‘attaboy praises in the comments section? Shazam.

There are a bunch of Torontonians competing in the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament this year, including this huge honkin’ dude who might just be one of the sport’s next stars. The fact that we never saw him when he was living in this city seems both tragic and impossible.

Photo by Ryan Tir from the Torontoist Flickr pool.

If you’re reading this in the future, consider this a plea for help from a spring-starved, over-wintered Toronto.

And here we were wondering why the local LCBO still had so many bottles of winter beers like Olvisholt Lava Smoked Imperial Stout kicking around. Turns out booze sellers are better at predicting the seasons than some dumb groundhog. Nevertheless, spring is probably around the corner, and with it renewal, new love, and the prospect of someday drinking on a patio again. Even if it all seems a bit far off at the moment, here are some spring beers and spring-related beer happenings to tide you over until the warmer weather arrives.

Soon We’ll Have A Brewery For Every Night of the Year

The number of breweries in Ontario recently topped 100, and here in Toronto new beer makers are popping up faster than you can say “market oversaturation.” We recently told you about the soon-to-launch baseball-themed Left Field Brewery. Over the coming months, look out for announcements from Kensington Brewing Company and Liberty Village Brewing Co., both of which of are on the hunt for permanent locations. (They currently rent production facilities from other breweries.)

While those new breweries take their first steps, some nearly new breweries are easing into maturity (which, in the Toronto beer scene, means being at least six months old). The Indie Alehouse and Junction Craft Brewing are both settling into their neighbourhoods nicely, with the latter now in permanent digs just south of St. Clair. Meanwhile, if you didn’t yet know that Bellwoods Brewery’s retail store is open, it’s definitely worth a visit, if only to get your hands on some of the company’s tasty creations without having to deal with the table service at the brewpub. And while those former new kids on the block establish themselves in the city, one of Toronto’s veterans is getting ready for a new direction: Mill St. Brewery plans to launch a beer-hall–themed extension of its Distillery District brewpub in April, which will include a still for producing bierschnaps (basically liquor distilled from beer).

Spring at the LCBO

There was a point when all the LCBO needed to do in order to improve its seasonal beer selection was stock something that wasn’t brewed by InBev. Those days are long gone, and yet somehow Ontario’s nanny-state alcohol conglomerate continues to outdo itself, season after season.

A few of the LCBO’s spring 2013 releases have arrived on shelves already. Of those, the kind-of-fruity, kind-of-spicy, kind-of-chocolatey, and kind-of-smokey Grand Cru, by Belgium’s Brasserie de L’Abbaye des Rocs, is worth the trip to one of the few stores in town currently stocking it. (Note: The labels on the LCBO’s bottles actually say “Brasserie des Rocs Grand Cru,” So is the malty-sweet and caramelly Bridge Burner, by Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery. Also, the infamous Italian sour beer Panil Barriquee—difficult to find when it came here a couple of years ago because of media hype—is back and hopefully not yet sold out. Not to be outdone by the foreigners, the ludicrously packaged Radical Road Canny Man, brewed by an offshoot of Etobicoke’s Black Oak Brewery, delivers sharp notes of peat and smoke in what’s quite possibly the most interesting beer to come out of Ontario in a while.

As the rest of the spring releases are (hopefully) rolled out over the coming weeks, look out for the boozy and highly anticipated Kuhnhenn Fourth Dementia, a barrel-aged ale from Michigan. Also look for the citrus-laced and mildly hoppy 8 Wired Hop Wired IPA from New Zealand. Notable as well is a selection of four beers from Belgium’s Brasserie Dupont, which, if not available at the LCBO’s Dupont Street store, will be a case of bitter irony.

Drink Beer, Eat Food, Help People. Sound Good?

As the weather prepares to maybe someday get a little nicer, you may soon find yourself shaking off your curmudgeonly winter ways and remembering that you do, in fact, care about other people. Here are two ways to show some charity while having a good time:

On April 7, the folks at Dishcrawl are putting on a Brew Benefit. It’s a self-guided pub crawl through various St. Lawrence Market establishments to benefit The Stop Community Food Centre. While the brews aren’t likely to blow the minds of most avid beer drinkers, they would serve as a good primer for that friend who hasn’t taken the plunge. There are also affordable food pairing options on offer, and it’s all for a good cause.

On the pricier (and fancier) side of things, the Brewer’s Plate charity dinner returns April 17, this year to benefit Not Far From the Tree. You’ll be able to taste beers from Great Lakes Brewery, Cameron’s Brewing Company, Granite Brewery, and more with food pairings by such local chefs as Cowbell’s Mark Cutrara and Keriwa Café’s Aaron Joseph Bear Robe. Like at the Brew Benefit, proceeds go to help people in need of food, so consider ponying up.

CORRECTION: March 21, 2013, 11:05 AM This post originally misstated the name of Brasserie de L’Abbaye des Rocs’ Grand Cru.

Representatives from multiple levels of government smiled for the cameras yesterday at a press conference organized around getting shovels giant, terrifying boring machines in the ground for the Toronto-York Spadina subway extension. Premier Kathleen Wynne and Mayor Rob Ford both spoke to reporters about transit’s future. Wynne once again backed her support for taxes, tolls, and other revenue sources to help pay for transit. Ford stood firmly against any new taxes, because he’s not a huge fan of political suicide. Instead, he alluded to having some other way of financing subways in the city but, as usual, didn’t go into details.

The amount of lobbying going on at City Hall might have boomed in recent years but, like all booms, it could be on its way down. The city’s lobbyist registrar is calling for limits on when lobbyists are allowed to contact councillors. The registrar hasn’t spoken to reporters about the recommendation, but we think it’s safe to say she wants to avoid the perception that lobbyists and politicians get together after hours for booze-soaked games of “Let’s Sell the City Out to Corporate Interests.” Or maybe it’s something else.

In a moral victory for anyone treated unfairly by police, a judge has slammed police officers for unnecessarily beating a man and then trying to cover it up in court. Whether anything substantive comes of it, though, is still up in the air.

Meanwhile, the police practice of stopping individuals to collect information, also known as “carding,” is still going on despite widespread criticism. In response, activists and lawyers frustrated by the lack of action from the City’s police board are looking into creating a smartphone app for people to document their interactions with police. The data could eventually lead to a class action lawsuit, that staple of the American judicial system that, like cherry Coke, never quite caught on here.

In all this political cynicism and papal optimism, it’s easy to forget that Canada lost a great musician and mythmaker recently. Thousands gathered last night to mourn the loss of Stompin’ Tom Connors. At least we know his music is almost certainly going to live on.

A smiling stranger is coming to town today to sell us on a monorail casino. That stranger, of course, is MGM, who plans to publicly unveil its vision for a casino and related entertainment facilities in Exhibition Place later today. Of course, MGM and partner Cadillac Fairview aren’t the only ponies in this race that might not yet even exist. Luxury resort company Wynn—whose name has got to be an outsourced copy editor’s nightmare—recently joined Caesars and Las Vegas Sands Corp. in expressing interest. Yes, the future’s looking up for this eager little town called Toronto.

Meanwhile, another side of the gambling coin was flipped onto the table yesterday (see what we did there?) as a multi-level police investigation into that sports betting ring that was busted during the Super Bowl led to the arrests of 18 supposed higher-ups in the ring, effectively taking it down. Police will be releasing the names of those arrested later today. While something tells us this isn’t the end of sports gambling in Toronto, the details of the ring and investigation are pretty cool to read, so here’s another version of the story.

Also in the true-crime vein, Hallandale Beach police will be giving an update on the case of the two Toronto snowbirds found dead in their Florida winter home later today. Considering the amount of details currently known is roughly nothing, any update should prove illuminating in this tragic case.

A Star investigation has discovered many tickets issued by the TTC’s enforcement officers go “vastly” unpaid. That might partially be because if you don’t want to give a TTC officer your address, they have no way of forcing you.

Teachers might not exactly be the most beloved people in the city right now, but that’s not stopping the parent council of one school from holding a teacher appreciation week. One council member told the Sun the appreciation week will be for what teachers do “for our kids throughout the day—teaching kids right from wrong, teaching them their maths and sciences, and caring about them.” The member reportedly later added, “And hey, we think two out of three is pretty good.”

Another mayoral goof, another complainant seeking Mayor Rob Ford’s removal from office. This one comes from a local artist, who takes issue with Ford continuing to solicit donations for his football foundation from city lobbyists, despite the trouble that’s gotten him in in the past. However, the Star seems pretty darn certain nothing will come of this newest complaint.