Extra, Extra: Homeowner Fined $75,000 Following Death of Tenant, Rattlesnakes Have a Good Day, and Super Burger’s Streetcar Reaches End of Line

By Sarah Duong

Every weekday’s end, we collect just about everything you ought to care about or ought not to miss.

Toronto firefighters responding to a fire. Photo by Charles Bodi from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

• The owner of an illegal rooming house has been fined $75,000 following the 2013 death of a tenant in a fire. A City of Toronto news release states that Konstantin Lysenko, owner of 189 Sheridan Ave., was fined $60,000 plus a $15,000 victim surcharge in the death of 24-year-old tenant Alisha Lamers, who perished in a fire after becoming trapped in the basement unit of Lysenko’s house. A provincial court found Lysenko guilty of multiple fire code violations, including a lack of working smoke alarms and the required two exits per floor. He faces an 18-month probation period.
• Two litters of endangered massasauga rattlesnakes were born at the Toronto Zoo this month, including one earlier this morning, as part of the organization’s conservation breeding program. In a statement made by the zoo, Andrew Lentini, the curator of reptiles and amphibians, said, “We are very excited to see success, for a second year in a row, of this important conservation breeding program.” Lentini continued, “This birth gives us confidence that we are making major strides in the work we are doing that will sustain recovery efforts for these special snakes now and for years to come.” Massasauga rattlesnakes are an endangered species in southern Ontario, whose populations have been affected by habitat loss and vehicle traffic.
• Primrose, Ontario’s (arguably) greatest burger joint is getting a makeover, or a make-under(?), depending on how you feel about it. Super Burger, longtime arch-nemesis of Champ Burger, will undergo a renovation, and in the process will abandon the 1940s vintage TTC streetcar that they transformed into a dining car in the burger joint. Super Burger owner James Nicolaou said of the move, “It’s outlived its usefulness and it’s all rusted up. It’s come to the end of its road… I’ll be glad to get rid of it at the present time. It’s an eyesore now.” Godspeed, my love. Godspeed.
• From today’s edition of 12:36, Toronto’s new lunchtime tabloid newsletter: Electronic dance music’s most frequent Tim Hortons customer was unimpressed by Diplo, Skrillex, and Justin Bieber claiming, in the New York Times, that their collaborative hit, “Where Are U Now,” cost $1.4 million to produce. Deadmau5 estimated via Twitter that the song could have been put together for little more than the price of a MacBook Pro, a couple hundred bucks in samples, a bottle to break on tape and a $40 lesson in playing the recorder. Turns out, the Beliebers are still around to stick up for their idol. (Want more 12:36? Subscribe to it now.)

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