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If you want people to dress better, you should pay them better.”
A Toronto Sun staffer reacts to a management-imposed dress code for the feisty, and often ill-dressed, tab’s staff.
Another Church Street icon disappears
Toronto’s lost another landmark and no, it’s not a hallowed hockey rink, it’s the cruising steps at Church Street’s Second Cup in the heart of Boystown. A legendary pickup spot and a popular place for 10 per cent of the population to check out the mammalian scenery, the owners have boarded up the steps claiming there were too many drug deals and older customers were intimidated. This may true but it’s amazing how often these excuses are cited whenever young people, straight or gay, tend to gather.
Pity the (April) fool
Here’s a real fool. On April 1, subway passengers at Summerhill station were chilled to hear the crackly voice over the system’s pathetic PA announce there was a serious problem. After riders had time to cower and wonder if it would be a Madrid-sized problem or just a good ol’ subway fire, the maniac at the mike cried, “April fool!” We’re not laughing.
Tuesday movie blues
Strange call by film exhibitors, who are dropping their much-loved cheap-Tuesday deal. They hold free screenings to generate ticket-selling word-of-mouth, so why cut discounts? People still go to the movies on Friday even if they take in a flick on Tuesday, when they wouldn’t go at all without the deal. The weekend is still the weekend, when everybody needs a night out. If exhibitors want to kill off moviegoing traditions, how about sticky, pop-covered floors and stale popcorn instead?
Miller money well spent
We thought right-wing business types at least understood that sometimes you have to spend money to make money. Mayor David Miller’s January summit of Canadian mayors to develop a strategy to spring cash from the federal government cost us $25,000. And now tight-fisted – on some things – councillor Doug Holyday is squawking about this well-spent dough. He’d rather it had gone to, you guessed it, a crime summit. Of course, the money Miller has squeezed from the feds will go a long way toward fighting crime and the conditions that create it. Holyday puts the jerk in knee-jerk.
