An LCBO employee tests out the first self-serve liquor store in Metropolitan Toronto. The Telegram, February 22, 1969.

The provincial government has recently mused about loosening Ontario’s liquor laws to allow greater mobility at outdoor festivals and other special events for those with a beverage in hand. We shouldn’t expect any rapid changes though—alterations to liquor regulations in Ontario have historically involved baby steps.
For decades after prohibition was dropped in Ontario, the government devised numerous methods of making drinking as unattractive as possible, from tight restrictions regarding service in beer parlours to requiring that Ontarians hold permits to purchase alcohol. A heavy-handed, thou-shalt-not attitude reigned supreme.
By the late 1960s, customers tired of having to purchase liquor by going into an LCBO store, signing a slip, and handing it to a clerk to retrieve their purchase, which was presented to them shamefully in a paper bag. As one customer put it, the process “makes you feel like a criminal or something. It’s a lot of nonsense.” Some clerks agreed, as they accepted slips signed by noted Torontonians like Donald Duck. Creating conditions which tut-tutted the public for wanting to buy liquor could only go on so long while the times were a-changin’.

Headline, the Telegram, July 23, 1968.

On July 23, 1968, provincial secretary Robert Welch announced that the province was launching a comprehensive review of the liquor laws. Plans to open three test “self-serve” liquor stores in Etobicoke, North York, and Weston the following year were unveiled, along with hints of studies into extending drinking hours on the weekend (which thanks to Sunday blue laws meant last call on Saturday was at 11:30 p.m.), lowering the drinking age (which occurred in 1971) and selling beer in grocery stores (which, unless you’re a fan of near beer, hasn’t happened yet). Welch felt that these changes were necessary to prove to younger Ontarians that “we are hip and relevant” (when asked if he was concerned about dropping the drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen, Welch replied “I’ve got more confidence in young persons’ approach to drinking than I have in some people who are sixty-one”).
The Weston store, located in a privately-built structure at 40 South Station Street, was the first of the initial trio of self-service locations to go into service. As its opening in February 1969 neared, the Telegram offered a glimpse of what customers would find inside:

The customer will enter through a turnstile, select the bottles of his choice and leave through one of five desks. Two walls are now lined with rum and Canadian whiskys and there are three islands of shelves loaded with liqueurs, brandies and other hard exotics. A separate room, panelled and ornamented with wine barrels, contains a wide range of wines.

Interior shot taken during the store preview. The Weston Times, February 27, 1969.

The store’s initial selection included eight hundred brands of hard liquor which, in the eyes of the Telegram, were arranged “like brazen hussies in a nightclub.” Two consultants, easily identified by their green blazers, were available to guide customers through the one-hundred-and-seventy Canadian and one-hundred-and-forty imported varieties of wine. If a consultant wasn’t around, cards were placed under each type of wine to indicate their level of sweetness. Among the remaining store staff were three part-time clerks that the Telegram claimed were the first female employees to work in a liquor store. None of the items on the shelf required a signed slip for purchase.
Opponents of self-service argued it was one more step in allowing too much permissiveness in society, which opened the door to more ruined lives and social depravity. Typical of the responses from those who disagreed with the concept was that of Reverend Gordon Brown of Runnymede Baptist Church, who felt easier access to alcohol would raise the crime rate (“It’s definitely a retrograde move. Criminality is related to alcohol”). Temperance advocates and religious organizations who worked with alcoholics feared that drunk driving incidents would skyrocket. Opposition also came from within the LCBO, namely clerks at existing stores. “It’ll never work,” said Bill Reed, a clerk at the liquor store at York and Wellington streets. He told the Telegram that “it won’t reduce the number of staffers required, it won’t be any faster—if anything, it’ll be slower and there will be a lot of shoplifting.” To combat shoplifters, and any temperance zealots tempted to wander in to smash the inventory, mirrors were set up around the Weston store for staff to monitor any fishy activity.
Seventeen eager customers were waiting outside the door when the store officially opened at 10 a.m. on February 24. One minute later, the first paying customer departed. Weston resident and trucking firm operator Douglas Wardrope put historical significance ahead of what was actually in his paper bag. “I’m not even sure of what I got,” he told the Star. “I guess I just wanted to be first.” (For the record, he bought a $2.55 bottle of Canadian whisky.) Wardrope raved about the new store, especially how fast he was in and out.

40 South Station Street as it looks today. Photo by Cherri Hurst/Weston Historical Society.

Customers in Weston weren’t the only beneficiaries of change that day. In the traditional counter-service liquor stores and Brewers’ Retail outlets, the hated slips were amended so that signatures were no longer required—customers just filled in their brand preference. While self-service would prove the dominant form of store, it took twenty-five years before the last of the counter service stores was phased out. As for that first self-serve store, the site is currently occupied by the Islamic Education Guidance Center.
Additional information from the July 24, 1968 edition of the Globe and Mail; the July 24, 1968, February 20, 1969, February 21, 1969, and February 23, 1969 editions of the Toronto Star; and the February 21, 1969 and February 22, 1969 editions of the Telegram.

Source: the Weston Times and Guide, October 20, 1960.

Despite the plethora of attractions the proprietors of Chester Drive-In Cleaners secured for the grand opening of their modern premises in the south end of Weston, it’s possible that terming the festivities as a “gala” may have been a last-minute decision. They might have needed an extra word to hide the mess created by the charming yet clumsy majorette in this ad after she accidentally popped the balloon beside the banner.
We haven’t determined who “Dale” was. Perhaps he or she was a local florist, the chief dry cleaner, or a neighbourhood musician specializing in pleasant, inoffensive music. Whoever “Dale” was, we imagine anyone who still has a carefully pressed and preserved bouquet of roses bearing his/her signature owns a priceless memento of that Saturday morning.
Half a century later, the structure still occupies 1708 Weston Road. Among its current tenants are a medical rehab clinic, a church, and a cheque casher. A different dry cleaner was among the occupants when Google Maps snapped a photo, but has since vacated the premises.

Dorothy Cornish, packing food for the food drive.

With Christmas only a week away, the Salvation Army York Community Church in Weston is gearing up for its annual food and toy drives. Since November, the church has been collecting and packaging toys and food to meet the needs of the community’s less fortunate, and over the holiday season it will hand out more than fifty thousand toys to approximately fifteen hundred families, as well as packages of food and grocery store vouchers to no less than five hundred households. Earlier this week, Torontoist visited the church and spoke with the drives’ staff and volunteers.

Peter Park, Youth Pastor

Peter Park and Dorothy Cornish, moving bags of toys out of the church’s elevator.

Torontoist: How many households does the toy drive help?
Park: Last year, the church’s toy drive reached out to twelve hundred families. This year we’re reaching out to about fifteen hundred.
In the past, we used to be able to give out toys to the older groups of kids, but with the economy, it’s been a little more difficult. We’re trying our best to give out as much as we can, but this year we’re keeping it to a major toy, a minor toy, and a stocking stuffer. We’re also giving out movie passes to the [kids] fourteen plus.
It’s been hard, but at the same time, it would be very wrong for me to say that people haven’t been more generous—everything they give has been used for the community. People have also been very generous with their time. Some people have been here for eight-hour-plus days, nonstop.

Dorothy Cornish, Volunteer

Torontoist: How long have you been volunteering here?
Cornish: Fifteen years.
Have you seen any changes over the years?
The population that’s coming this year has increased drastically, and we’re really down on toys, and even the food is down compared to what we used to give. Even ten years ago, there would have been lots of food and lots of toys, but then we had the fire at the Railside [Avenue Warehouse] last year, and the things that didn’t get burnt—which wasn’t many—were all water damaged, and that was our stock for this year. So we didn’t have a real good start.
What do you enjoy most about this kind of work?
The motivation for me is that I know it’s going to help the people that need it.

Joanne Park, Seasonal Worker

Joanne Park, loading the toys into the truck.

Torontoist: How did you get involved with the toy drive?
Park: I’m hired just for the Christmas season. I attend the church, and I’m the wife of the youth pastor. I heard about the position and got very interested—it sounded like a whole lot of fun, helping people and giving out toys.

Jeffrey Cameron, Community and Family Services Worker

Torontoist: How many people does the food drive typically help?
Cameron: So far, we’ve helped between three hundred and four hundred [people]. Now we’re going to have another three big days of registration. We hope to not have to go past this week, at this time. And then next week we really want to make it on an emergency basis—individuals who are in that time of crisis.
How does the registration process work?
Typically, just about everybody has to register. That being said, if a family comes here and they have just gone through some sort of tragedy, like a house fire or and unexpected death in the household, and they’re just not able to financially make it, then we can probably do a quick registration with them. For general registration, we ask them to bring in some ID for everyone in the household, so we know who’s staying there.
Regarding ID, one of the problems is if they’re a newcomer, they don’t always have the ID that we’re used to having. So when it comes to ID, I try to accept as much as I can. But we do need ID.
On top of ID, we also ask for proof of income—if they’re on disability, Ontario Works, or welfare. If they’re employed, we just ask them to bring in a pay stub, to show what they get on average. We try to work out as best we can what their general monthly income is.
What happens if someone isn’t able to provide the proper ID?
It’s a play-it-by-ear situation, but I try to be as lenient as I can. One of the sad realities is that a lot of individuals, especially newcomers at this time of year, are not necessarily working in a legitimate job—it’s more under the table, and it’s for cash…Sometimes their employer is still willing to write them a little letter stating how much they’re getting paid. If they’re not, we do what we can, but I don’t make any promises to anyone that comes in.
We have to be realistic, because sometimes we do have individuals who try to come in here, when they really have much more at the end of the month than the average person we help. Some [people] are essentially looking for a free gift.
What do you enjoy most about doing this job?
There’s so much to enjoy about doing this. There are times where it can be tough or you have to be tough. But on the same token, when you hand a bag of toys to a household or to a family that would just not be having a happy holidays at this time of year, and to see their response, and to hear that person say: “Thank you so much” or “You made my kid’s Christmas.” To get that response is just joyful feedback. That’s really what carries me through.

Gordon Tull, Retired Construction Worker

Torontoist: How has the Salvation Army helped you?
Tull: I retired four years ago, at sixty, from heavy construction work. The food bank here helps me quite a bit; I really appreciate what they’re doing.
Photos by Nick Kozak/Torontoist.

One of several barber shops on the Mount Dennis stretch of Weston Road.

If Toronto, the Greater, is a universe unto itself, then beyond the countless points of light and rapturous, flash-lit starlet nights, there must be, too, some dark matters: specifically, the unchecked growth of neglected living spaces across our metropolis.

Neighbourhood decline begins in small, untended degrees—there is no official process in high orbit to monitor the integrity of Toronto’s interlocking social fabrics. In a rhythm typical of large North American cities, our councillors grind away in the direction of lobbyist spin or on their own personal axes. And the mayor, as super-councillor, has his own agendas that may or may not coincide with individual community needs.
So, unremarkably, over time our city has devolved in some important dimensions: the number of high-poverty neighbourhoods has quadrupled; ghettoization has more than doubled in the last twenty years, with only 56% of Toronto’s poor families living in mixed-income neighbourhoods, down from 83%; the family poverty rate has increased nearly 50% in the last twenty years, to almost one in five; the neighborhood income gap is increasing with the average family income in the bottom 10% of neighbourhoods actually declining about 5.5% between 1981 and 2001, while families in the top 10% saw an average increase of 59%.
This disturbing set of trends began to be addressed in earnest in 2002, at the first Toronto City Summit, a privately funded conference of civic leaders representing the city’s diverse communities. Their mission was to begin an assessment of the region’s strengths and challenges and to establish a framework for action for the next five to ten years. At the following year’s summit, they delivered a report, Enough Talk: An Action Plan for the Toronto Region [PDF], which provided the basic blueprint for the Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force [PDF], formed in 2004. The report from the task force—a key member of which was the United Way of Toronto, led by Frances Lankin (it’s their research above)—identified thirteen at-risk “investment neighbourhoods,” the ones that fared worst against several indicators of vitality. These are neighbourhoods where community services and facilities have not kept pace with demographic changes. Expect to find a high density of newcomers and youth; a lack of community centres and minimal access to public spaces; and significant economic, educational, and health challenges.
It is more than a matter of altruism to focus on investing in the neighbourhoods. Even if you live outside the thirteen neighbourhoods, there are economic reasons for enlightened self-interest. According to the United Way and Canadian Council on Social Development:

Why worry about poor neighbourhoods?…We are concerned about the profound human cost of poverty on individuals and families who struggle not only to survive, but to participate fully as citizens…Neighbourhood poverty has a devastating human cost and also damages the economic and social vitality of an entire region, affecting the quality of life for everyone in Toronto.

TD Bank’s report, The Greater Toronto Area (GTA): Canada’s Primary Economic Locomotive in Need of Repairs, also identified persistent “deep pools of poverty” as one of the five major impediments that threaten the longer-term economic performance and quality of life in the GTA.

Children study on a quiet street in the Mount Dennis neighbourhood.

One such forgotten neighbourhood is Mount Dennis, which Torontoist toured several times over a period of several months. Located in what’s called an “inner suburb,” Mount Dennis came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. It is located on the west side of town in what was known in pre-megacity times as York. Its border has an irregular shape, with the northern boundary starting a few hundred metres south of Denison Road, running between the Humber River on the west and the CN tracks on the east side. The Humber River defines the western limit down to Eglinton Avenue, then extends down Jane Street, just south enough to encompass the southern end of Gladhurst Park (Lambton Road). The CN tracks form the eastern border, just east of and parallel to Weston Road; the main artery of the neighbourhood.
Mount Dennis was mainly rural until Kodak Canada moved its factory complex there during World War I. For decades, that plant served as the backbone of industry in the area, and the affordable housing that sprung up around it helped attract a high percentage of Toronto’s newcomers. It soon became a high-density neighbourhood and today boasts a significant concentration of immigrants from around the world, including the Caribbean, Africa, Portugal, Italy, Korea, and Vietnam.
In the last twenty years, though, a number of large manufacturers uprooted, taking their employment and opportunities for skills training with them. Emblematic of these was Kodak, which finally left in 2005, leaving thousands unemployed. The factory space remains unused. On the other end of the scale, starting in the 1990s, a number of big-box stores landed in the neighbouring vicinities (Weston, in particular), eventually squeezing out scores of long-standing small businesses.
A pleasant curiosity about Mount Dennis is that for all its issues around unemployment and idle, alienated youth, crime is relatively low. And this was a fact well before the implementation of TAVIS. The low rate is partly attributed to the area being something of an isolated pocket, with a market too desolate to support even a drug market.

Top: A woman walks by Tipper Restaurant on Weston Road. Bottom: Tipper, owner of Tipper Restaurant, sits in front of a wall of photos inside.

Early and often, the man called Tipper cracks wide a genuine smile. He bears a contagiously easy, unflappable demeanour. In some twenty-odd years as proprietor of his well-known neighbourhood Caribbean-Canadian take-out restaurant, he’s seen them come and go. Too much has been going for too long.
“When I first came here in 1987,” he says, “it was a strong community then. There used to be a lot of older immigrants, and it used to be a busy business community. But all my old lunch crowd is gone now.”
The rangy sixty-one-year-old proceeds to list a string of substantial companies that have deserted the area for more favourably taxed places like Brampton, Milton, Pickering, Mississauga, Ajax, and even Barrie. It is close to two full minutes of listing before his first pause. While business isn’t what it used to be, he’s not considering a move like so many others before—it would simply cost him too much to restart his small niche business elsewhere. A well-regarded professional cook (he’s developed recipes for the Heart and Stroke Foundation), Tipper is hoping to ease into consulting and perhaps write a cookbook.
Mount Dennis, though, is not stagnant; it’s in transition, slowly awakening and asserting itself. Cutty Duncan, project coordinator for the Mount Dennis branch of Action For Neighbourhood Change (a United Way–funded agency) is spearheading a resident-engagement strategy. Residents are learning to empower themselves and how to voice their concerns to local representatives for the changes they need. “People are being mobilized to understand processes and the agencies available to them,” says Duncan. “It’s about relevant programming for the people, by the people. They know best which supports and infrastructures are missing from their lives.”

Guido Vit and son David apply stucco to a building on Weston Road. Many facades in the area are being resurfaced this way as part of beautification initiatives.

Some longtime residents remain skeptical that real, long-term, sustainable change will come. The infamous 1995 extension of the Eglinton subway line west through Mount Dennis was on the verge of stimulating a powerful revitalization when the project was suddenly cancelled, its tunnels re-filled. Commercial land development and spin-off projects that began on the assumption of the grand project’s completion all came to an indefinite halt. Local cynics have yet to shake the more passive show-me attitude they acquired after that deflating experience.
There are, however, glimpses of brighter days ahead. A three million dollar investment by the McGuinty government, in partnership with the United Way and York Community Services, is supporting construction of a brand new community hub, offering a full range of relevant programs, including family, youth, and settlement services, as well as an employment resource centre. A new community health centre will also be installed at the site (with an estimated arrival date of January, 2010). It’s the right kind of motion, momentum waxing as inertia begins to wane.
All photos by Nick Kozak/Torontoist.

Lucy, holding an additional letter she wrote for her dad.

Yesterday, Torontoist visited the Learning Enrichment Foundation (LEF), a Weston-based community centre that caters to recent immigrants, for the Toronto launch of Canada Post’s letters to Santa program. The event, which was an offshoot of LEF’s regularly scheduled children’s arts program, equipped kids from the neighbourhood with paper, markers, crayons, candy, cookies, and hot chocolate—everything necessary to write a letter to Santa.

Brianna (left) and Cadence, hard at work on their letters to Santa.

For many of the kids, several of who were recent immigrants, this was the first time they had ever written a letter to Santa. Of course, video games, phones, and laptops were the hot items in almost every letter, but we were particularly impressed by the wish of five-year-old Cadence: “I want a map of the world,” she told us, “so when I grow up, I can be an explorer.”
Since 1982, when the Canada Post program was first established, volunteer elves (current and former employees) have answered 17.4 million letters on Santa’s behalf. In 2008, Canada Post responded to 1.4 million letters and sixty-three thousand emails, in more than twenty-seven languages, including Braille. And unlike the U.S. program, which has been dogged by security concerns, there’s no threat that the Canadian program will end anytime soon.
Security has never been a problem, according to Jennifer Arnott, a Canada Post communications officer. “With the Canada Post program, we’re very careful about making sure that all the people that answer letters are Canada Post employees or former employees.”

Vin Heney, a LEF youth leadership worker, talks to the kids about proper letter-writing etiquette.

Before they write any letters, volunteers are screened and trained, and they are never given access to the children’s addresses. Canada Post also uses a computer tracking system, so it knows the author of each and every letter.
As always, letters to Santa can be addressed to:
Santa Claus
North Pole
Canada
H0H 0H0
Santa also responds to emails, which can be sent from Santa’s Corner on the Canada Post website. Although, if you send an email, Santa and his elves can only reply via email.
(Fun fact: although H0H 0H0 is reserved for Santa Claus, the H0-prefix is actually associated with a rural area of Montreal, and only the Akwesasne Region (H0M) shares the same prefix.)
All photos by Stephen Michalowicz/Torontoist.