City supported clean up weekend

Leaside Rotary recycling weekend

Third Annual Sweep the Street held by the Bayview Leaside BIA

Closed both ways April 21 to 24 for cleaning

This weekend is the Clean Toronto Together event. As many as 200,000 citizens will officially participate in street, neighbourhood and public space cleaning with the assistance of the City. One such cleanup is the Third Annual Sweep the Street held by the Bayview Leaside BIA. Saturday and Sunday the Toronto-Leaside Rotary will run an electronics recycling drop off station at the East York Town Centre (poster above). Also keep in mind that the Don Valley Parkway is closed this weekend from 11 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday for cleaning.

A young man has been charged with stunt driving at 183 km/hr early Tuesday in a 100 km/hr zone on Highway 401.  The driver, 22, was stopped by an officer on the highway near Victoria Park at 6 a.m. The man’s licence has been suspended for seven days, and his vehicle, a Audi RS7, has been impounded for seven days.

See later post  — Do John Tory, Bill Morneau and Charles Sousa have any idea what to do about Toronto’s out-of-control house prices? Tuesday is the day that the mayor and the two ministers will meet to try to figure it out. They do so on a day when Royal LePage Realty has announced that the aggregate price of a home in the Greater Toronto Area rose by an “unprecedented” 20 per cent across all housing types to $759,241 in the first three months of 2017. The big realtor also suggests that the effect of the tax on foreign buyers in Vancouver is wearing off. Homes there continued to increase in value in the past month by close to 50 per cent on a month-over-month basis.

It appears that City Council will again discuss the bylaws which require grocery stores and other businesses to close on a statutory holiday. The CBC says that City staff has recommended yet again that the patchwork quilt of practices be regularized by permitting all stores to open. In the past, Council has not had the courage to do this. At present, large shopping centres such at the  Eaton Centre are permitted to open under the guise that they are tourist areas. Many say this is a legal ruse and a simple sop to huge property owners like Cadillac Fairview. Nonetheless, it has been practiced for decades. At the same time, smaller businesses are left to wonder if they will be charged if they open. In the past few years, however, it has become fairly apparent that, without saying so, the City is not prepared to see businesses charged for opening on statutory holidays. Some legal opinion holds that this is because such a charge might lead to a constitutional challenge. The mishmash of bylaws might be found to be unfair — which they are — resulting in wholesale of invalidation of bylaws.

Tyler Bozak ends it in OVERTIME! Toronto is LIT right now! #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/AESP9aBXnW

— NBC Sports Hockey (@NBCSportsHockey) April 18, 2017

The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Washington Capitals 4-3 in overtime of Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead. Tyler Bozak scored 1:37 into overtime for the win.

GO CRAZY TORONTO! pic.twitter.com/gV2go8NT2x

— NBC Sports Hockey (@NBCSportsHockey) April 18, 2017

Toronto!!!!!!!!!! #GoLeafsGo

— Josh Matlow (@JoshMatlow) April 18, 2017

Back to back OT wins! @MapleLeafs take control of series. 🚨 #GoLeafsGo #tmltalk

— John Tory (@JohnTory) April 18, 2017

City News

City News

Avery Haines of City News is saying that the Matharoo sisters. Jyoti and Kiran, are back in Toronto and that they somehow departed Nigeria without their passports. This may be, but the last word previously heard in December on the status of the two graduates of Don Bosco High School was from Brad Hunter in the Toronto Sun. He said they had signed “criminal undertakings” confessing to blackmailing and cyberbullying more than 200 men. One of the victims was the influential billionaire Femi Otedola. Hunter said the women had agreed to leave Nigeria and never return. Their departure seems quite sensitive with some Nigerian journalists. But there’s no evidence that the men who were humiliated by dalliances, if any, with Jyoti and Kiran are demanding a public airing of the matter in court. According to Haines, the Canadian government is doing a high-minded privacy routine around just what, if anything, it did to expedite passages of the femmes Matharoo. City News shows a social media account of the Dreamy Beauty Bar, 717 Queen Street East where it says they have been visiting. Their apology

Flawed industry model

Flights must fill every seat

Cole Doyle unseated

Air Canada has apologized to a Prince Edward Island family after the airline bumped their 10-year-old son from a flight. That decision sent the family on a convoluted odyssey from Charlottetown to Moncton to Halifax to try to get seats for all of them. They finally got away the next day after a hotel stay in Halifax. It was March Break but Brett Doyle had booked the tickets in August. From his story, it seems clear Mr. Doyle and his family were given the same off-hand treatment which is common among airlines in 2017. And well before, in fact. But realists understand the airline industry’s business model is deeply flawed and there seems no easy way of fixing it. Open competition requires airlines to maximize the value of every expensive take off to the bottom line. It’s why planes are overbooked. More airlines offering deals may permit more people to fly but it also guarantees that some will be bounced. In this case, the airline has given the Doyles  an apology, a $2,500 voucher, which expires in one year, and says it may cover family expenses.

LED sports lights test was a success! Afridi and Gillani families first to play #cricket under the lights.
May 18 Grand Opening! 🎉 pic.twitter.com/KM8BCn8xxS

— Go Green Youth Centre (@GGyouthcentre) April 15, 2017

More

Mock IED carried by Galaska

Mock alarm clock

US authorities have now released a photo (left) of the phony bomb (also mock IED) that 58-year-old Joseph Galaska was carrying to Chicago when he ran afoul of US customs at Pearson airport and landed in jail for carrying a mock bomb. Beside it, to the right, is a photo of a mock bomb alarm clock made in the US which has gotten travellers in trouble as well. Why not. They both look scary as can be.

Thomas McCole and Jake Mednick

Blue

White

Stern man will smile if you stretch socks

Special benefit for CAMH

DJ Darryl Henry of CHFI

Prime Minister: Please put these on

Canadian promotion

Hockey-playing buddies Thomas McCole and Jake Mednick were like most fans when they heard that the Leafs had hired straight-shooting Mike Babcock to guide the team during its re-build. But unlike most fans, these two area men also were hit by a brilliant stroke of whimsical genius — call it Babsocks. Yes, hockey socks comically inspired by the new coach. They started to work designing the socks and sourcing a maker. They didn’t even bother to ask Babcock if they could use his likeness. (He thinks it’s hilarious.)  In a year, McCole and Mednick have gone from zero to a hundred on the novelty sock scale.  There has been the St. Patrick’s Day Babsock, the Team Canada (Molson) Babsock and the Purple Babsocks in a special benefit for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). But the main show is the Leafs sock, blue and white (home or away) sold for $20 a pair (two for $35) with ten per cent going to benefit CAMH. Now Babsocks is open at 553 Mt. Pleasant beside the Regent Theatre near Belsize Drive. Don’t get caught without yours at Game Three.

Seems to be for keeps

Goodbye to her blog

This is said to the prince arriving at Meghan’s place in Toronto in recent days

Meghan Markle has resigned from a lucrative contract she held with the Canadian fashion retailer Reitman’s and taken down her commercial blog, which was followed by thousands. The decisions are being taken as evidence that her romance with Prince Harry is moving forward to an announcement of marriage. ET