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Newsstand: July 17, 2012
If you lived in Tuesday you'd be home already. Ever think about that? While you're in a pondering mood, some news: two people are dead after a shooting at a neighbourhood barbecue, man arrested in connection with Empress Hotel fire, the library puts out call for due-date slip advertisers, how to maintain a tennis court, a new condo proposal, and we're world-class for real now shush.
A shooting at a Scarborough block party has left two people dead and 19 more injured from bullet wounds and others from trampling. Reports say some individuals were fighting, then pulled guns and started shooting in the middle of the crowded street. One suspect was hospitalized and is in custody. Police are looking for more suspects. Police Chief Bill Blair is calling the incident the worst gun violence he’s seen in 35 years on the job.
Police are on to the guy that may have burned down the old Empress Hotel on Yonge Street in early 2011. Yesterday, the cops arrested 53-year-old Stewart Poirier in relation to not one but two fires, and charged him with arson, violating probation, mischief endangering life, and attempted murder. The attempted murder charge is in connection to a recent fire at a Toronto Community Housing building on Sackville Street. There’s no word on whether Poirier has any connection to the Lalani Group, the developers who owned the old heritage building at Yonge and Gould. But there is evidence that Salad King’s owners still stare wistfully at their old spot.
Psst, just a reminder: the Toronto Public Library is moving along with its plan to put ads on due-date slips. The library has put out a request for proposals to find a company that can sell the ad space as part of an effort to shore up the library budget. There is another request seeking other advertising suggestions at the ol’ local book hole.
While books wage their war against privatization, the clean white lines of some new tennis courts at St. Clair and Bathurst may soon be sullied in a similar battle. It’s neighbour versus neighbour as the residents around Cedarvale Park make the case for and against a private tennis club maintaining the new courts. Some say taxes should do the trick, and extra fees and effort are not required. Some say pish posh. Stay tuned for all the oohs, aahs, and the rest of this gripping mid-summer drama.
Attention people who drive up to Northern Ontario to scope out old abandoned neighbourhoods that once had something to do with the military: drive no farther. For there is such a community in our very own backyard. Or, there is for now. The Department of National Defense is in the process of transferring William Baker Park over to Downsview Park, who will in turn sell the land to make way for, you guessed it, a condo. The Park is currently home to a few remaining Canadian Forces service people, and won’t be sold until they move out.
And rejoice: Toronto is officially a world-class city, according to a poll of Americans and Britons, which is completely trustworthy and relevant and bares all the markings of legitimacy for a made-up thing. So let’s not say anything more about that ever again, okay?