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Newsstand: April 6, 2010
lllustration by Clayton Hanmer/Torontoist.
Torontoist’s life lessons of the day: Stealing bicycles—bad. Giving unclaimed stolen bicycles to needy kids—good. Trying to buy back the stolen bicycles from the needy kids—Igor Kenk. Proving he still has a spoke or two loose (not even counting the powder-blue track suit), the bike thief showed up at the Cabbagetown Youth Centre yesterday where volunteers were moving 1,830 of his “puppies” into temporary storage, and he offered to graciously take some of the equipment off their hands. Kenk, who was released from jail in March, is maintaining he is the rightful owner of the bikes, comparing the charitable donation with the substance that comes out of a male cow’s behind, in less words. Well, he certainly proved us wrong when we suggested yesterday that he might have normal human feelings after all. Rest assured, Torontoist will never make such an assumption again without consulting the Igor Kenk Guide to Criminal Craziness (our title) due out in May.
Toronto’s food banks are facing serious declines in donations, causing two of the biggest to extend their food drives for an extra week. The recession, increased charity competition, and donor fatigue are leaving donation shelves half-empty when demand has increased. To illustrate the plight of those on welfare trying to pinch their food pennies, prominent Torontonians like Joe Mihevc (Ward 21, St. Paul’s West), Fucked Up frontman Damian Abraham, and author Naomi Klein are meeting the Stop Community Food Centre‘s challenge to live off a “standard hamper” of food (twenty-five to thirty dollar’s worth, including foods like eggs, veggies, beans, rice, and hot dogs) for as long as possible. The hampers are designed to last three days, but are often made to last ten.
Clubs don’t have the best rap in Toronto—but what about compassion clubs? Sounds nice, right? Well, not according to Toronto police, who shut down one such club last Wednesday, eliminating a resource that provides sick Torontonians with medical marijuana. The customers of Cannabis as Living Medicine, which has been in peaceful operation for fourteen years, say Wednesday’s raid points out the ineffectiveness of Health Canada’s current medicinal marijuana program, which forces patients to buy their bud in better quality and quantity from unofficial suppliers.
Toronto has always been a city for movers and shakers, but especially movers. U-Haul named our city as the top destination for Canadians in 2009, the eighth year in a row we’ve nabbed the top spot. Calgary and Montreal were next in U-Haul’s statistics, but Windsor for some reason gets a special low-blow shoutout.
The City has big plans for Toronto’s waterfront, but mismanagement is threatening to sink one of them. A proposed thirty-four-million-dollar sports complex in the Lower Don Lands lost a lead architect this past weekend, and now looming funding cuts and “scattered” councillors are putting its future in even more uncertainty. Paula Fletcher (Ward 30, Toronto-Danforth) says the “stupid” “expensive” “iconic” project, which includes three new hockey rinks, is worth receiving a life preserver.
Tom Hanks film classic Big has happened in real life! The only excuse for a Brantford man who was charged with taking cellphone photos up women’s skirts in a department store is that he is actually a twelve-year-old trapped in a forty-six-year-old’s body. Hmm… no? Just another perv then.