Starbucks to close Teaopia on South Bayview

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Teaopia, the tea shop at 1592 Bayview Ave. will close shortly. Teaopia, as those who follow the tea and coffee industry will know, is owned by Starbucks. A one-time Canadian start up, Teaopia, landed on Bayview in the fall of 2011 at the location previously leased by the Tea Emporium.  Shortly after that, Teaopia was sold to the U.S.  tea room and over-the-counter chain Teavana. Then last year the surprise of them all as Starbucks moved to buy Teavana, lock, stock and tea barrel. Those who know South Bayview will recognize that Teaopia has never been as busy as its owners-of-the-moment would wish. Coffee seems to remain the dominant drink and most of that action happens on the east side of the street.  

Apple buys Toronto mapping firm Locationary

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Apple has purchased a small Toronto-based start-up called Locationary. It appears the acquisition is intended to help Apple with its mapping ambitions. Apple suffered serious embarrassment when it ditched Google maps for its own locating service which was promptly  revealed as a total failure. Locationary, through their Saturn technology, provides crowd-sourcing data that brings up-to-date and accurate information about businesses to the masses, such as exact location and hours of operation. According to the Locationary website, they currently track 5.61 Billion data fields and manage 175 million profiles. 

Momofuko Toronto and why you can’t escape

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Momofuko Ando
The Momofuki food madness that has infected many Toronto trendoids is back today with the opening of the restaurant chain’s so-called Milk Bar in that glass-cube room overlooking lower University Avenue. The current popularity of the name traces back to a legendary businessman and promoter Momofuki Ando (1910-2007). Ando was the Taiwanese-Japanese inventor of instant noodles.  He thus became a millionaire many times over and now, it seems, a kind of cult icon. As breathlessly reported in the Toronto Star by Michelle Henry, the Momofuku Milk Bar will serve the restaurant’s crack pie “famous — or infamous — buttery, oat-encrusted confection cheekily named for its purported addictiveness”  How wonderful. Presumably this is better than those hash brownies that Shirley Brown used to bring to school.  Go get ’em gang. Michelle Henry

Riders love curbside buses but can they survive?

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Here in Toronto transit planning is about whining for billions of dollars of tax money to build subways, or whatever. In New York the order of the day seems to be to legislate private start-up bus companies into the garage. These so-called curbside buses have proven hugely successful and they actually make money.  The most famous of the curbside lines is Fung Wah Bus. It started about ten years ago by looping around Manhattan neighborhoods picking up passengers at stops on the sidewalk. Fung Wah’s $10 route to Boston was always full. Now the debate rages between politicians who want regulation and free market advocates who say the government is going to destroy businesses that are providing a real service and creating jobs. The video is from Reason magazine. It is very entertaining and it clearly flatters Fung Wah Bus. An alternate view of public transit.  

Lawyers are trained not to blab — more or less

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The news that an otherwise-reputable British law firm was responsible for blabbing J.K. Rowling’s secret authorship of a novel raises the question of how law firms try to keep secrets. In the Rowlings case, a member of Russells Solicitors told his wife, who told a girlfriend who tweeted a reporter pal on Fleet Street that the author known as Robert Galbraith was really Rowlings. What the heck! Can’t we do better than that? Rowling is angry, Russells is deeply embarrassed and the lawyer, Chris Gossage, has to wonder whether he will ever have the confidence of his profession again. There are no records of course about how Stikemans or Goodmans train lawyers to shut up. Presumably there is a need-to-know rule in place for anything that matters. That would mean that a lawyer is playing with dismissal when he (or she) pillow-talks such information to the bed-partner, friend and help-mate. Some people can do it. But we all know the genetic need to blurt out the things we know is really strong. 

Motor City broke after years of mismanagement

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Detroit — fabled home of the automotive industry and Motown Music — has filed for U.S. Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. The home of Ford, GM and Chrysler has been mismanaged for decades and is said to be sinking under millions in debt.  The bankruptcy petition would seek protection from creditors and unions who are renegotiating $18.5 billion in debt and other liabilities. Detroit thus becomes the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy. Detroit lost a quarter-million residents between 2000 and 2010. A population that in the 1950s reached 1.8 million is struggling to stay above 700,000. Much of the middle-class and scores of businesses also have fled Detroit, taking their tax dollars with them. 

Paper says chance media outside wrong hospital

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The world’s digital and scribbling hordes have been camped outside St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington for weeks but the Duchess of Cambridge could yet give them the slip by giving birth in Reading, according to the Telegraph newspaper. The Duchess, who is thought to have passed her due date, has been staying with her parents in Bucklebury, Berkshire the paper says.   The plan is for the Duchess to give birth at St. Mary’s Lindo Wing but there is also a contingency plan for a birth at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. This is where the expectant royal wife was born in 1982.  The Royal Berkshire hospital is in Reading and if  the Duchess goes into labour while she is staying with her parents and her labour progresses more quickly than expected, the Telegraph says, her doctors could send her to the Royal Berkshire, which is less than half an hour’s drive from Bucklebury. The trip to London is 53-miles although we may assume the ambulance would have a high-powered escort.

BMO opens new branch at 1560 Yonge

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BMO Bank of Montreal has thrown open the doors at its new branch in Delisle Court at 1560 Yonge Street.  That moves the BMO branch up Yonge and across the street from the former branch which was located at 1461 Yonge south of St. Clair. That old branch kind of sat in the shade of the Scotiabank on the corner. The new BMO claims its own space and it a good place to pay your American Express (heh heh).

Phillip Olsson leaves LCBO to lead OLG

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Phillip Olsson         Edward Waitzer

Phillip Olsson (left) has been tentatively appointed to become chair of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. Mr. Olsson is currently head of the LCBO.  The government has appointed former Ontario Securities Commission chair Edward Waitzer (right) to lead the liquor board. The OLG post has been empty since Premier Wynne fired Paul Godfrey from the position earlier this year.  Both appointments are subject to approval by the standing committee on government agencies this fall.