The South Bayview Bulldog

Toronto fire personnel made a stop at Duff’s at 1604 Bayview Ave. but they spent their visit mostly in the basement checking electrical stuff and not chowing down on wings. Too bad. All’s well that ends however.

Shoppers Drug Mart is getting its oar in the water as a distributor of medical marijuana. The firm, a Loblaws subsidiary, has applied to Health Canada to become a licensed medical marijuana producer. The announcement is not surprising because CEO Galen Weston suggested the idea a few months ago. Shoppers says it does not  want to grow the weed, just sell it. Under present rules, patients are permitted to buy medical marijuana directly from licensed producers who deliver it by mail. Weston says Loblaws, Shoppers will sell pot if permitted

What a pickle this fellow got into in Switzerland when he stopped to talk to someone and didn’t quite secure his car. Yikes. Also In Your World Today, pop singer Bobby Vee has died in in Rogers, Minnesota at the age of 73 from Alzheimer’s disease, his son Jeff Velline says. Vee was tapped to fill in on stage at the age of 15 following the plane-crash death of Buddy Holly in 1959. His most famous of many hits was Take Good Care of My Baby.

And here’s a Chicago Cubs fan who says he will pay $20,000 so he and his dad can watch the Cubs play in the world series. All right!

Vicki Hall ‏@vicki_hall17 spotted this apparently albino squirrel on a fence in Leaside. These creatures are known mostly as “white squirrels” and are legendary in Trinity Bellwoods Park in the west end and in the area of the Town of Exeter west of Stratford. According to local sages the community proclaims itself the “Home of the White Squirrel” and has a mascot called “Willis The White Wonder.”

When the City embarked on the Bloor Street bike lanes pilot project earlier this year there were many silly suggestions that these lanes would somehow or other make business for small stores along that stretch even better than it was. It is hard to imagine how anyone who has ever run a small retail business could have believed that. Street parking is the life blood of small stores and when it goes away, as it has on Bloor between Shaw Street and Avenue Road, the losses are cataclysmic. So it is that retailers are reporting declines of up to 70 percent in their business. It is a lesson for Midtown retailers.

RESTAURANT INSPECTIONS

Global News reports on another Civic dream unrelated to reality in the necessary inspections needed to make sure restaurants are safe. What’s wrong with that? Nothing of course except it costs money and as restaurants continue to proliferate the City needs more and more staff to inspect them  The inevitable occurred when last year there were only 25,359 inspections instead of the 30,545 required. Uh-huh. Hire some more inspectors right away.

MAMMOLITI VULGAR BUT RELEVANT

The irrepressible (not to say obnoxious) Georgio from Ward 7 has been caught giving critics the finger in his battle against a proposed tax on what appears to be rain-on-the-roof. Who knows, except as history tells us, things like garbage collection, which used to be part of regular City taxes, is now an extra tax. Mammoliti sees the day when Toronto will apply a rain-on-the-roof tax.

Toronto is years behind other cities but it is finally about to get on-street digital parking that permits drivers to top-up parking fees remotely by the end of the year. Mayor Tory made the announcement today. It requires use of the City’s free Green-P parking app and the pre-payment of funds. With an account containing $20, for example, a motorist will be able to tell the app the vehicle’s plate number, the number of the meter where it’s parked and how much time is needed. And that’s it. A digital death knell for gotcha tickets. That’s because the system reminds drivers wherever they are that time is running out and permits them to top-up the parking without penalty from wherever they are. It is a boon to anyone delayed at the dentist or for old friends lingering over coffee. It is a whole new world of parking and its likely popularity is foretold by the use of the app at Green-P lots, where it began last year. As much as 25 percent of parking lot revenue is paid by phone. The financial trade-offs for the City are tricky to calculate for a layperson but the advance payment of funds is a plus for the municipality which may see ticketing reduced. Many yellow parking tags occur when drivers are unable to make it back to the meter in time. Pay-by-phone: Civil parking and an end to gotcha tickets

A cyberattack from unknown sources and for unknown reasons is to blame for shutting town the Ontario-wide online literacy test lat week. The Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) said students were left looking at blank screens by a “malicious and sustained Distributed Denial of Service attack.” This attack seems to have occurred in the same context as the attack on the Dyn hosting service which shut down important businesses like Twitter, Paypal and others, but the EQAO release does not say if the same creeps are responsible for the attack on the literacy test.

San Francisco is undergoing a construction boom. Huge towers and underground transportation tunnels. Sound familiar? How about a 58-story luxury high-rise in downtown that is sinking and leaning to one side. Frightening, and an appalling worry for residents in a City known for earthquakes. Elsewhere in Your World, a very informative story from CNN on how the huge denial of service attack shut down critical sites late last week. Worth a look  There’s still a lot of decency in the UK despite the Brexit attitude as the government there takes in refugee children from the Calais “jungle” camp.

The colour is not very intuitive. And many will ask if there’s another jurisdiction in world with grey police cars. But Chief Saunders says its okay.  CBC

UK, Arkansas, Australia, Toronto

Laura Hesp — CBC Photo

Hey, what could go wrong. Uber has your credit card and so does someone else. Seems they latched onto your password too. Now Uber is calling to say your car will be right there, you know, at that address in downtown Krakow, Poland 7,000 miles away. You watch as your impersonator hops in and gets delivered to the other side of Krakow. A bill for something like $3.75 Canadian arrives. This is the story Laura Hesp tells of her unwanted “visit” to Poland. She complained to Uber and they refunded the fare, advising her to change her password and remove her card number.

A woman was seriously hurt when she was struck by a vehicle Saturday night about 7 p.m. at Coxwell and Sammon Avenues. The accident scene is a short distance East General Hospital. The injuries are not expected to be fatal.