July 2, 2009 Nanny State Nonsense

Regular Shark Guy readers take note. We will return to non-municipal dumping related posts on Friday (unless of course, you want us to switch formats like a failing new country station and stick with this exclusively).

We will periodically update the trash situation with new developments and pictures, provided it’s not raining and we can’t find anything better to do (a likely outcome, as we have a few candidates for better things to do right now and welcome suggestions).

As you can see, Christie Pits Park is piling up fast. Compare the photo here, with one taken 3 days ago in which hypothetically, a game of ball hockey could’ve been played at one-end of the rink provided smelling salts were on hand to revive the players.

The latest is that apparently more parks are being considered for possible landfill sites. These include Dufferin Grove and Trinity Bellwoods, the former, the site of a weekly Farmer’s Market which will soon offer a grocery shopping experience that is as close as humanly possible to dumpster diving.

Apologies for the photo (left). I was risking life and at least one limb on my own bike when I took the shot and this rank Lance Armstrong was going pretty fast despite hauling a gray garbage bin.

Christie Pits area residents have been protesting by dumping fake trash at city hall. They really should really up the ante with the real thing.

Here’s the CITY TV action news team on hand to cover the event (it should be noted, at a considerable, more nostril and gag-reflex-friendly distance away from the picture above) as cars are lining up with trunks filled with trash.

Stay tuned as we bring you, Gifts for the Patriot who Has Everything as we raise a glass to our neighbors stateside for their 4th of July. Back soon.

June 29, 2009 Nanny State Nonsense

Plug your nostrils everyone. We just passed Week 1 of the city-wide garbage strike (well, city-wide except for one borough that has private pick-up), smack dab in the middle of one of the city’s biggest tourist draws—Gay Pride.

Here is Christie Pits park, in Toronto’s Korea Town / Annex West Neighborhood. It’s one of the temporary landfill sites that the city has set up, much to the chagrin of everyone in the ‘hood and one of the authors, who lives a few blocks away.

In another few weeks, this outdoor rink [above and below left] will be filled to the brim with stinking trash, which is already smellable a kilometer away. If this keeps up, we might have to compare New York City Versus Toronto garbage strikes.

As you can see below, trash bins have been wrapped up with cellophane and are ‘temporarily out of order’.

In Windsor, across the border from Detroit, their strike has dragged on for more than 10 weeks. We hope to get photos of that soon. Luckily, the moronic government monopoly that holds our hand when we go to buy liquor, averted their strike [please see our LCBO Strike post] so we avoided the perfect shit storm. We’ll be back with more shortly, if we aren’t overcome by the fumes.

June 24, 2009 Nanny State Nonsense

As we’ve noted previously, when it comes to booze and consumer choice in our province, much like the tavern that pours only dregs from the bottom of one keg, there is very little. In fact, it’s completely absent in the People’s Republic of Ontario where real competition is stifled like fixed Mafia ‘Bum of the Month’ fights.

Why this is so is anyone’s guess (Freemasons?), but as it stands, a state-owned enterprise with annual revenues of nearly $5 billion dollars a year with the Orwellian handle, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, has a firm grip on the market, like a drunk brown-bagging a Colt 45 (which you can purchase at the LCBO, but it’ll just cost you three times as much, mostly because of taxes—definitely out of the reach of your average brown-bagging rummy).

No booze for you!

Now this ridiculous enterprise, born out of Canada’s prohibition era and just as relevant is set to strike, coinciding nicely with the city of Toronto’s garbage strike, thus far in its second day of baking garbage like ziti out on the sweltering city streets, as Gay Pride hits its stride and the city readies itself for Caribana and the Jazz Festival.

For our American readers, LCBO outlets are incredibly opulent, not only by the standards of the interstate liquor barn—hell, they’re like grabbing a bottle of vino at a Macy’s department store (when you’re a monopoly, busy counting the endless $$$ like in a bad hip hop video, guess you have to spend it somewhere) and the prices reflect it. And this is despite the LCBO being the largest purchase of liquor in the world. (In second place is the thoughtfully-named PLCB, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, with a pricing scheme that would be the envy of a Peruvian cocaine cartel. Wine and Spirits stores in Amish country, were allowed to be open on Sundays (gasp!) only as recently as 2003).

Boosters say “well,  the selection is incredible!” and of course this is the case. If there wasn’t, people would complain bitterly and question the practice of state-run booze peddling. Pro monopoly advocates also suggest that the LCBO is considerably more strict than say, backstage security for your average rock band, when it comes to checking ID. This is a red herring, as anyone who’s attempted to buy liquor underage knows (that is, those people who’ve ever been between the ages of 16 and 18), it’s best procured by somebody’s older brother or by hanging around outside the parking lot and looking for someone who from outward appearances, is lacking in moral scruples.

Stock up everyone and sign whatever petition you can get your hands on to rid the province of this lumbering dinosaur, so we can buy booze where we please, you know…like adults.