The South Bayview Bulldog

Police have intensified their search for 9-year-old Maëlys de Araujo in the French alps after they concluded that neither of two men being held had anything to do with the girl’s disappearance. Maëlys vanished at a wedding last weekend in Pont-de-Beauvoisin. Donald Trump was in Houston Saturday meeting the overwhelmed residents of the flood-stricken City. In Budapest, a sporting contest to swim the Danube between the ancient municipalities of Buda and Pest is under way. And in Toronto, a man has set a Guinness Record for a bee beard. This crowd-pleasing spectacle took place in Yonge Dundas Square this week.

Toronto police will not be issuing tickets for most street parking bylaws on Labour Day Monday, a practice they began earlier this year on long weekends. Exempted areas include parking meters, rush-hour routes and signs for bylaws normally enforced Monday to Friday. Other parking offences csuch as no stopping, no standing and parking in front of a fire hydrant will be enforced.

After a wait, woman’s number is called

Abbas Kolia calls out numbers for free backpacks

Premier says hello

Scooby Doo attraction

Pigeons displaced by festival

Political presence

Young and old

Hundreds of families won free backpacks and other prizes like calculators and lunch boxes on Saturday at the sixth annual Thorncliffe Park Tenants Association and the Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office event Saturday at the East York Town Centre parking lot. The gifts were handed out by ticket number to residents during the day by tenants association president Abbas Kolias. Corporate donors were important contributors to the success of the gathering. There was a full political presence — Premier Wynne, MP Rob Oliphant and Ward 26 Councillor Jon Burnside were all there. Pigeons which normally reside in the west end of the large EYTC parking lot found themselves relegated to the mall roof. Occasionally they made a swooping protest flyover of the event tents.

Robyn Hochglaube (right) and close friend

Principals Sandra Larosa and Barbara Sandler/Janis Fertuck Twitter

East York Bulldogs

Above is Robyn Hochglaube with a close young friend. Robyn is the owner, operator and serene oversight at Leaside Community Facebook page, a busy franchise she started five years ago (already) when she moved to Leaside. The page has some 5,000 members and is visited frequently by The Bulldog. Upper right, the new principals at Rolph Road and Northlea Schools, Sandra Larosa and Barbara Sandler. They are interviewed by Janis Fertuck here.  And then, Rob Granatstein has tweeted this picture of the East York Bulldogs. He remarks on their fantastic defence in provincial play Friday. Looking good guys. Great name for a baseball team.

The price of regular gasoline at the Esso station on Mt. Pleasant Rd. at Merton St. has broken the highest guesses for the hurricane-crisis spike in the cost of fuel. It sits Saturday at $1.34 a litre, two cents higher than estimated.

Over City Hall at noon hour

Hello Toronto!

Trooping the Colours at Nathan Phillips Square

https://twitter.com/holmester/status/903688871497621504

How do you get 24 aircraft together to fly over #Toronto? Watch this to see! The flags during the opening sequence are the #RCAF Colours! pic.twitter.com/JXvSaJRfzo

— Royal Canadian Air Force (@RCAF_ARC) September 1, 2017

The sign at the Esso compound at Merton St. and Mt. Pleasant Rd. says regular gasoline is $1.25 a litre for all practical purposes. Don’t ask about triple high-test. And there is worse to come. Analysts estimate regular will hit $1.32 a litre by Saturday morning. Many pumping gas on Mt. Pleasant were bitter. There’s no shortage of fuel in Canada. International marketing is in full possession of pricing. Canadians hurt when the Americans hurt, even if it has nothing to do with Canada. Not to be ungenerous, the states of Texas and Louisiana are going through hell. Apart from much else, Hurricane Harvey has shut down as many as 14 refineries.

A clerical employee at McEwan University in Edmonton took the word of an authoritive-looking email that said all payments to Clark Builders, a firm constructing a new building for the university, should be re-routed to a new bank account. As a result, the university is out nearly $12 million. The school didn’t realize what had happened until Clark called to ask why it hadn’t been paid. Of the $11.8 million diverted by this fraud, police say $11.4 million has been frozen in bank accounts in Hong Kong and Montreal although when and how it might be returned is unclear. It is a statement about carelessness, but also about the authority that we place in email. Accountants say it is unfair to pin the blame on low-level staff. Bank account changes, they are say, are unusual. They should be treated like a request to access your own bank account. Such changes should be sent right to the top of an organization. But it seems no such protocol was in place.

Petroleum analysts are predicting regular gasoline in Ontario will be priced at 132.9 cents/litre by Saturday morning because the shutdown of US oil refineries during impact of Hurricane Harvey. The punishing prices may last there months some experts predict. The storm has knocked out significant oil drilling and refining capacity in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, and on Wednesday, the largest U.S. oil refinery shut down. The operator of a major pipeline carrying fuel to the East Coast said it was running at a reduced rate.

CANADA-US ONE BIG MARKET

Although Canada has no shortage in gasoline, prices are established by a continental North American market. Petro-Canada will get the market price for gas shipped to the US and Canadians will pay inflated prices the same as Americans.  Listen to Dan McTeague of GasBuddy.com discuss Soaring Gas Prices on Newstalk 1010 http://fw.to/USUcrIb (recorded August 31, 2017).

300 RSVPed

The Guitar Guys

Everybody was there

Smokin’ Cigar at 1540 Bayview cebebrated 20 years in business Thursday night with a large turnout of customers to see what was new in fine cigars, and get some of their favorites. Owner Trae Zammit said he had recieved 300 RSVP to attend from patrons. The Guitar Guys string trio was playing for the entertainment of cusotmers and people passing by.

Share with rubber cones

Eastward on north side of St. Clair

Where am I?

Subway is down here somewhere

Slate Asset Management, owners of 2 St.Clair East (where the subway stops) are busy remaking the intersection. Work at 2 St. Clair and other (but not all) of the eight buildings owned by Slate has made the corner a barrel of fun. Signs suggest that a better day is on the way in 2018. Yonge-Delisle plan swings light onto Slate Asset ambitions