The South Bayview Bulldog

Saturday December 10 will see the re-opening of Manor Road United Church after its renovations. There is the annual pancake breakfast Saturday and special services Sunday. Also Saturday, horse drawn carriage rides will be operating on Bayview Ave. for shoppers and the kids. And the Winter Village is underway at Evergreen Brickworks.

LEASIDE MATTERS

The Leaside Community group Leaside Matters will be selling T-shirts outside of the LIT coffee shop on Bayview. The shirts show a map of the town and sell for $20. There are also maps and a cultural heritage of Leaside pamphlet to be had.

https://twitter.com/LeasideBIA/status/807281389339049985

Outgoing U.S. Vice President Joe Biden hailed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and German Chancellor Angela Merkel as genuine leaders during a time when they are in short supply at a state dinner in his honor in Canada on Thursday night. Biden said he’s never since Europeans engaged in as much self-doubt as they are now and said there are more challenges to the liberal international order in any time since the end of World War II. “The world is going to spend a lot of time looking to you Mr. Prime Minister,” Biden told a crowd of Canadian dignitaries. “Viva la Canada because we need you very, very badly.”

PARK IMPEACHED

The South Korean parliament has voted to impeach President Park Geun-hye. It is a stunning and swift fall for the country’s first female leader amid protests that she had permitted a friend, Choi Soon-sil, to extort money from business. Soon-sil and two other former presidential aides were accused of bullying large companies into providing tens of millions of dollars and favours to foundations and businesses Choi controlled, and enabling Choi to interfere with state affairs.

RUSSIAN DOPING

And more than 1,000 Russian competitors across more than 30 sports were involved in an institutional conspiracy to conceal positive doping tests as Moscow ‘hijacked international sport’, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) SAYS. Canadian sports lawyer Richard McLaren provided exhaustive evidence of an elaborate state-sponsored doping scheme operated by Russia’s Sports Ministry.

Putin with discredited athletes

There will wine-tasting among fine cuts of meat at Grilltime Saturday when Mark Bolduc of the The Vine Agency visits between 12 and 4 p.m.  Grilltime owner Andy Elder offers an invitation to all to enjoy some of his fresh cooked hors d’oeuvres to go along with the wine. Some of the vintages to be tasted are:

WINES

McManis Family Vineyards/Ripon, San Joaquin Valley 2015 Viognier, River Junction/Wine Enthusiast 88 Best Buy, Roccafiore/Todi, Umbria 2015 Rosato di Sangiovese, Tin Barn Vineyards/Sonoma, R8 by Mike Lancaster’ Cab Sauvignon, California / Rod Phillips 4 stars, Chateau Pesquie/Mormoiron, Ventoux Rhône 2014 Les Terrasses Rouge, Ventoux/Parker 91, Saviolidis 91, Tenuta Cocci Grifoni/San Savino di Ripatransone, Marche and 2011 ‘Le Torri’ Rosso Piceno Superiore (Sangiovese/Montepulciano)

GRILLTIME

Grilltime is at 72 Laird Drive (parking at rear) (416) 467-4745.

Andy Elder with Marc Bolduc of The Vine Agency

Hors d’oeuvres too

Tasting from noon til 4

Mayor John Tory, Jeff Hohner and Jon Burnside at Guys Night Out and Toy Drive

There was good fellowship for Leaside guys and their friends from nearby at the Guys Night Out and Toy Drive Thursday night at the Leaside Pub. Mayor Tory, Councillor Burnside and many more joined the gathering. The idea, rendered annually, is to bring a toy for a child who might go without come Christmas. Andy Elder reports there was a big turnout. The mayor said  a few words too. Says Andy: “It was a great night, well attended, well executed. So many including Jeff (Hohner, pub owner) put in lots of effort to make it happen.” Andy, owner of specialty meat shop Grilltime, Dave Illiatovitch-Owen of seafood retailer De La Mer and Trae Zammit of the Smokin’ Cigar combined to offer a private evening of oysters, steaks and cigars for eight at Andy’s Laird Drive Grilltime emporium. The night will include beer and wine. Says Andy: “It sold for $1800. I’m proud of that.”

So there’s this must-have toy called the Hatchimal. Yeah, we just learned what it was today too. But there are enough people who know, and enough kids who want it, that greedy persons are buying them by the bag to trade on the pressure (real or imagined) that children will put on their parents to get one. Ugh.

Bandit without hat

Youthful stickup suspect

Fresh-faced alleged felon

Police have released razor-sharp photos of a suspect in the robbery of four banks since November 21, 2016.  This fresh-faced young man enters a bank and waits in line before passing a hold-up note demanding specific denominations of money and indicating he is armed with a gun  All four robberies took place on Yonge Street, between Davisville Avenue and Lawrence Avenue West  Three of the robberies occurred at 12:30 p.m. He is described as early 20s, 5’10″ – 6’.

John Glenn, the last surviving member of the original seven American “Right Stuff” Mercury astronauts, has died at the age of 95 at the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University. Glenn was credited with reviving U.S. pride after the Soviet Union’s early domination of manned space exploration. His three laps around the world in the Friendship 7 capsule on Feb. 20, 1962, forged a powerful link between the former fighter pilot and the Kennedy-era quest to explore outer space as a “New Frontier.”

Chef Ivan and Brother James (Bailey) have announced they are closing the Bar Mar restaurant at 623 Mt. Pleasant Rd. and Manor Rd. Previously, the distinguished former bank building on the corner had a long history as the French restaurant Celestin. It was purchased by the Bailey brothers in 2009. In an announcement this week they say the brand Bar Mar band will continue “via pop ups and special events though for the while Bar Mar will not have a fixed location.”  It was only in April that the restaurant changed its name from Celestin to Bar Mar and theme from French to Peruvian/Spanish.

Walking down an alley at College Street and Spadina Avenue at 2.30 a.m. isn’t something that many of us can relate to but police are hoping someone can help with the capture of the three men who stole a man’s backpack and glasses at just such a location. YouTube video.

Three area residents are remembered in obituaries on the Humphrey Funeral Home site.

AUDREY TOBIAS

Audrey Sylvia Tobias was a recipient of the Agnes Macphail Award. Her long life was filled with activism and the defense of personal freedoms. She was a Wren in the Canadian Navy during WWII and politically engaged all her life.

DR, ROBERT BOUSFIELD

Dr. Bousfield was a distinguished urban planner and served as an expert witness at the Ontario Municipal Board. He conceived two lasting gifts to the public realm in proposals for a green belt around Toronto (1958) and the Toronto Waterfront Plan (1967)

JAE BLUE

Ms Blue was a teacher and world traveler whose life was ended at age 69 in a traffic accident December 1, 2016 in East York. Toronto Sun