news
Newsstand: February 4, 2011
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
Welcome to Friday, a.k.a. Saturday Junior! Today, TTC union plays nice, cops keep toys, and crime doesn’t pay for skimmer scammers.
TTC union head Bob Kinnear has said that the union will not disrupt TTC service as long as contract talks continue. At a press conference yesterday, Kinnear said that no job action will be taken when the present contract expires on March 31 if negotiations are still taking place. That said, the province is currently in consultation with various stakeholders to determine whether to grant the city’s request to make the TTC an essential service and remove the union’s right to strike, so the offer may be meaningless anyway. Kinnear also said that it was not unethical to allow restaurant staff to confuse him with Greg Kinnear if it gets him a better table.
The G20 wasn’t a complete fiasco; the Toronto Police Service will be keeping a whack of equipment that was purchased at discounted rates thanks to a fifty percent subsidy from the federal government. The gear includes video cameras, gas masks, and the famous Long Range Acoustical Devices (LRAD) , also known as “sound cannons.” Toronto Police Services Board Judy Cohen said she was “shocked” to learn that the police were retaining the gear, moments before she was sound-cannoned into submission.
After reviewing the “customer service” plan that would see the hiring of temporary cleaners to spruce up TTC stations, councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong wondered why the 500 cleaners currently working can’t do the job. Minnan-Wong questioned the decision to bring in extra staff for a cleaning “blitz,” noting that there was no business plan or hard numbers behind it. Bring back the pig posters, we say!
Good news for frequent flyers: you can now engage in in-flight toenail clipping again! Transport Canada has said that nail clippers and small scissors for personal grooming will once again be permitted on board Canadian flights. Knives will continue to be banned, and there will be a six-centimetre limit on the size of the items allowed. There is no length limit on toenails.
Five men from the GTA have been arrested in a scam which cost ATM users some $280,000. Debit card information was “skimmed” using a device attached to bank machines, while at the same time PIN information was recorded using a pinhole camera. The cards, but not cardholders, were then cloned, and the maximum daily limit was withdrawn until the account was empty or someone noticed. Those arrested face a wide variety of charges.