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From Milk Run to Milk Hike
Downtowners had a terrible scare a few week’s back. The fruit hut that stood, proud and dilapidated, across from what is arguably Toronto’s worst-stocked and worser-run Dominion, was bulldozed.* Thankfully, a newer, less dilapidated hut rose from the ashes only weeks later, thus keeping the point-counterpoint of $3.99 stawberries versus $1.99 strawberries firmly alive.
Meanwhile, grocery changes are taking place at varying speeds all across the G.T.A. The much-ballyhooed Kensington Market Zimmerman’s/Loblaws coproduction is still a contentious, half-built reality, while a new Korean grocery store on Bloor West managed to come to life in just under a few weeks.
CBC online has an excellent Marketplace article by former DNTOist Nora Young on the plight of the local grocery store. In the piece Young talks to councillor Shelley Carroll, who “represents Ward 33, which is home to some 112,000 people – and “three grocery stores to choose from.”
Wither the local grocery store? It’s hard to say for sure. Some nabes seem chock-a-block with good eats and better provisions, while others have sparse amenities, and long slogs to overcrowded markets. Most alarming is the idea that large, centralized monster marts are restricting smaller guys from opening shop, but an update to the Marketplace piece says efforts are being made to do away with these proprietary restrictions.
*Update: The Weisblogger informs that the fruit hut was burned, though details of the blaze are smoky to be sure.