news
Newsstand: February 7, 2011
Illustration by Jeremy Kai/Torontoist.
Hello! Sorry, we didn’t see you standing there. Call it Monday vision. So, here’s what’s up: the Brick Works’ bricks might have merit, churchgoers take the right to get high to court, the biggest hill is the least-allowed, something about drunk fish, and let the elephants roam free(er)!
Why, hello! Happy several-days-into-Chinese-New-Year-celebrations! Happy day-after-Bob-Marley-Day! Look, it’s February, and we have to come up with reasons to celebrate, alright? Like, for example, we could take a bunch of guys chasing one another around on a field as an opportunity to eat greasy treats and yell at our TVs. OK, so we don’t actually know what happened with the Super Bowl last night, but we’re sure it was really great and enlightening and all that. Everyone on Twitter was either pitching a fit about the music at the halftime show, or an awful lot of people were simultaneously dissatisfied with some Southern cuisine.
Anyway, back to life in Toronto:
Evergreen, the organization that runs the Brick Works, plans to appeal a summons from a municipal bylaw enforcer giving them a slap on the wrist for the graffiti that adorns the heritage site. The appeal will involve an investigation into the graffiti’s cultural value, an assessment which could take up to eighteen months. In the meantime, Evergreen has invited Rob Ford to come down to the site for a tour, an offer his office is thinking about.
A Superior Court will hear today from a Toronto church that uses pot to get closer to God. The Church of the Universe believes that cannabis is sacred, teaching their flock that it was a key ingredient in a cocktail of holy oil that Christ was anointed with. Well, “what’s good enough for J.C. is good enough for me,” as they say. The church was charged with drug trafficking after an incident involving two undercover cops attending a service in 2006. The Church of the Universe is asking for an exemption to the drug law on religious grounds, but it’s expected that if their claim does go through this court, it will be passed on to the Court of Appeal of Ontario. The Toronto Sun says that this is believed to be the first time a Canadian court has been called upon to determine whether illegal activity by a religious group is protected by the Charter of Rights.
It’s been true for five years, but the Toronto Star is reminding us that Centennial Hill in Etobicoke is off-limits to tobogganing enthusiasts. The Centennial Park Ski and Snowboard Centre hires a City of Toronto police officer to help enforce the ban, a gig that pays sixty-five dollars an hour, which is, in some case, more than double a regular duty shift. There’s a tobogganing-designated hill on the other side of the park, but critics children agree: the bigger, faster, less-allowed hill is way better.
It’s not the newsiest news, but it’s kind of cool: a prof at U of T’s Mississauga campus is making strides (or whatever the equivalent of strides are that fish make… like, really effective wriggles?) in research on alcoholism and fetal alcohol syndrome by getting fish slightly drunk. Oh, to be a scientist.
Speaking of animals, for those of us who totally love elephants, this article is kind of a heart-wrencher: City Councillor Shelley Carroll is on a mission to get the Toronto Zoo’s three elephants—Toka, Iringa, and Thika—to a California sanctuary, where they’ll live out happier, healthier days. The elephant in the room: being in captivity really sucks.
We originally located the Centennial Park Ski and Snowboard Centre in Mississuaga; in fact, it is in Etobicoke. Our thanks to a reader for pointing out our error.