news
Newsstand: April 15, 2010
lllustration by Clayton Hanmer/Torontoist.
Do we (Toronto, that is) love to follow good news with bad, or is it just an election issue stirring up strong words on either side? Tuesday looked pretty damn good for cyclists: the Bixi bike-share program and segregated, median-hugging bike lanes were put forward for city approval—which was Councillor Giorgio Mammolitti’s (Ward 7, York West) cue to renew his calls for “bike licensing.” He, along with fellow mayoral candidates George Smitherman, Rocco Rossi, Sarah Thomson, and Councillor Rob Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North) all argued against the project. For those keeping score, that’s all the front-runners except Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone.
A TTC driver has been charged with assault after a teenage passenger received what police called minor head and neck injuries in an alleged fare dispute on a bus near the York University campus. The bus driver, Hagos Bereket, is accused of pushing eighteen-year-old Ricardo Jardim’s head against a window of the bus. The alleged assault broke the bus window, according to a Toronto Police Services press release, and Jardim was sent to a hospital as a precaution. Bereket has been taken off the road for the time being. TTC spokesperson Brad Ross called the charges “very serious” but cautioned against jumping to conclusions.
An emergency task force will cordon off sections of the PATH and the concourse level of the Cadillac Fairview TD Tower this Sunday to play paintball rehearse for a hostage situation. Residents of the tower were sent notices advising them of the “live shooting” exercise (which will use blank rounds and paintball-like “simunition”) to take place in advance of the G20 conference this June.
Meanwhile, in fishy business, twelve sushi restaurants were forced to fix misleading menus or practices to reflect the fish they were actually serving, after DNA testing revealed that they sold mislabelled sushi. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency ordered the changes after an investigation by the Star last year. No more will customers at Nara Sushi on Avenue Road chomp down on tilapia meat they thought was red snapper. Okay, maybe most of us wouldn’t know the difference, but it’s the principle, dammit.
As a side note, while the above story demonstrates that the Star employs a “Faith and Ethics” reporter, the paper still isn’t above busting out its latest catch phrase twice in the same week. Yup, the busty hookers are back, and this time they’re escorting a report that MP Helena Guergis is being investigated over serious drug- and stock fraud–related accusations. Kevin Donovan, we’d high-five you, but we’re afraid you’d secretly take our fingerprints.
And police working on the Michael Bryant homicide case are reinterviewing witnesses and conducting new forensic tests, after the prosecution requested “some follow-up investigative steps.” As well as potentially adding new evidence, the effort will introduce new delays into a legal process that has shown the public little else since last August, when bicycle courier Darcy Allan Sheppard was killed after being run over by Bryant’s car. Bryant, formerly Ontario’s attorney general and head of the group Invest Toronto, is charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. His case is back in court on May 25.
This article originally said, based on a Globe article, that “a pilot trial of the [segregated, median-hugging] bike lanes [on University] now has been approved”; in fact, the proposal is still pending approval.