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Newsstand: May 24, 2011
Illustration by Sasha Plotnikova/Torontoist.
It’s all over now, babies blue. With the end of the long weekend comes the beginning of your Tuesday Newsstand. In the lineup today: liquor laws likely to loosen soon, transit planners take advice from The Onion, and record rainfalls may make for a very batty summer.
No better time than a holiday long weekend named for a case of beer for Ontario’s Attorney General to say liquor laws will likely be loosened up in time for summer fun. Under the new scheme, beer tents at concerts and festivals will include all the freedom to shop while you drink in a cordoned-off area (finally!), and the potential for your uncle to embarrass you will tick up a notch as weddings will be serving liquor until 2 a.m. An official solicitation of public comments concluded that most people are into the rule changes, while some Ontarians continue to suck.
On the non-official end of public consultations on policy changes, Mayor Rob Ford says he’s heard enough support for scrapping the five cent plastic bag fee to see about doing away with it. Ford opposed the fee from the time David Miller and the gang set it up and has said in the past he’d like to see the revenue from the fee go into environmental programs (as opposed into thin air, like it does now) or stop existing all together.
Any Liberals hoping for a May 2-4 miracle in Etobicoke Centre are being forced to take another swig of defeat, as a recount confirms Tory Ted Opitz won the seat by 26 votes over Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj.
Sure, support is growing for express bus corridors as a main plank in developing new public transit plans. But have the guys pushing for a system of rapid bus super lane ways in the GTA seen this? Do they still think that sounds like a good idea?
And as you scratch away all your long weekend cottage-going trophies from our winged buzzing friends, be warned that this summer is set to be a buggy one. The record rainfall this spring means that mosquito breeding grounds are hot and heavy. But even the designated doomsayer in this article comes right out to say he’s no doomsayer, and that the increase in bug populations would mean more bats and birds feeding on the bugs and it’s all relative blah blah blah. Come on doomsayer dude, it would be way more fun for everyone if you would just play along. Or better yet, declare this summer to be an exceptionally batty summer.