One of the intentions of NorthRonces.com is to direct attention beyond the mental and legal boundaries that constitute the Roncesvalles Business Improvement Area (RBIA) which officially ends at Hewitt Ave. on the north end and Galley Ave. on the south. The expanse of Roncesvalles and Dundas West between Hewitt and Bloor has generally been considered something of a commercial and community dead zone, one of those stretches of well-travelled thoroughfare familiar to most Torontonians (south Bathurst comes to mind). These areas are characterized by heavy traffic, predominantly rental housing, transient businesses and a generally less inviting, less loved feel. And this despite the existence of strong residential neighbourhoods just behind the uninviting commuter facade. In the case of North Ronces and Dundas West, however, there have always been a few strong businesses and lately there have been even more signs of renewal.

In my opinion, any account of Dundas West and Roncesvalles must begin with De Francesca Men’s Hair Stylists (2231 Dundas Street West) where brothers Joe & Palmo cut hair while chatting about society, Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Italian soccer. Aparita Bhandari has written a slice of life portrait of Joe and Palmo’s barber shop.

Macklem’s Baby Carriages & Toys (2223 Dundas St. West) has been in the neighborhood since–wait for it–45 years. The Ranger family has traversed the evolutionary path from covered prams to the current all-terrain, SUV, baby strollers. The selection of baby stuff here will surprise you.

Fast becoming an institution in its own right, Hugh’s Room (2261 Dundas St West) has provided live folk and roots music, as well as fine dining, since 2001. The list of established acts that have performed at Hugh’s is impressive.

Steven R. Smith Restoration (476 Roncesvalles Ave.) has also been around for a number of years and has more recently added a storefront showroom. Steven restores old furniture and antiques and also builds elegant custom furniture which, frankly, looks better than most actual antiques. You have to check it out.

Cheryl McCarron has just opened an English as a second language bookstore appropriately called the ESL Shop (2233 Dundas St. West). Cheryl is in the process of setting up her web site so ESL teachers and students will be able to purchase from her online.

And these are just a few of the enterprises that contribute to the life of North Ronces. As residents of the community we have to remember that North Ronces does not end at Hewitt.

Now we just need the Loblaws/Zellers complex to recreate itself so that it respects the life of the street as an integral part of a sense of place and community. As it is, the Loblaws parking lot acts as a black hole absorbing Dundas West into its vehicular nothingness. Wouldn’t it be great if Loblaws fronted Dundas West and parking was either behind or underneath the building? It would also be a perfect place to locate a LCBO Liquor Store, would it not? Of course it would.

Eucan has renamed their monstrous trash bin/billboards. They will no longer be called the somewhat cute “EcoMupi”. Instead they have been christened “MegaBins”. Uh-huh. Do they actually think the name “MegaBin” will be more endearing to the Toronto public? This is seriously funny. I think it may also be a sign that the trial is not going as smoothly as Eucan, or the City, had hoped.

I actually used a MegaMupi–or whatever they want us to call it–the other day and was shocked by how small the garbage receptacle actually was. Anyway, the Toronto Star has finally chimed in with a wonderfully scathing–if somewhat disjointed–attack on these “enormous, nasty-looking, view-blocking things” by columnist Slinger. Here’s a taste:

On top of that, for six days the MegaBin on the Danforth was stuffed so megaFull it megaOverflowed. What does it lead us to expect from the hucksters promoting them when they can’t even manage to have their mega-ripoffs emptied while they’re trying to prove how wonderful they are? While they’re showing off?

There’s a term for what’s going on here — I forget what it is, but it refers to a medical technique. If you have a sore leg, a sure-fire treatment is to whack you so hard on, say, the shoulder that your shoulder hurts so much you forget about your sore leg.

“We want to help make Toronto more clean and beautiful,” says Rolando Garcia, CEO of Eucan, the company that has nothing but our best interests and making millions from advertising income at heart.

Slinger also points out that Eucan claims that one of the MegaBin’s “improved features” is that it has a “smaller footprint” than the existing 3-slot OMG bins. Slinger parenthetically retorts:

(What about huger eyeprint? What about more than twice as huge?)

Good stuff. I would like to thank Liam for the head’s up on the name change. And don’t forget to fill out the online EcoMupi-MegaBin survey.

In my last blog entry I set out the problem of treating health practitioners as sex trade workers and argued that the Holistic Centre By-Law should be scrapped in its present form. But then, how does the city deal with the existing lisences used as a cover for body rub parlours? After all, both Dundas West and our end of Bloor have no shortage of these phony “spas” and “centres.” My personal position is that the city should acknowledge the existence of the sex trade and regulate it directly. This would allow us to monitor the human rights and public health issues that are the worst part of a covert–because illegal–sex trade. We could then have an above board and transparent body rub license, or even a brothel license, that would apply only to professionally run body rub parlours and brothels. Of course, our politicians will never make this controversial move.

Therefore, in the present situation the practical solution is a health practitioner registry system based on a recent and successful Markham initiative. I will let health practitioner David Pinto explain the registry in his own words:

We propose that Council adopt the “registry bylaw” model used by Markham. It is simple and much cheaper to administer than a licensing bylaw, because the City will not have to maintain the whole infrastructure needed to administer, enforce, and adjudicate the Holistic bylaw as it stands now. And it makes life measurably easier for the legitimate practitioner because it leaves them alone.

How it works is simple: Either you demonstrate being a member in good standing of a recognized Professional Holistic Association, or you’re charged with operating without a Body Rub license. To protect against phony associations, all associations must conform to a list of criteria set out in the bylaw: e.g., they must be a legally incorporated non-profit with an elected board of directors who must be mostly practitioners. The Association’s bylaws must detail its standards of practice, a code of ethics and a disciplinary procedure. The City will then be able to close down all of the phony places within weeks after the registry is set up, because the phony places will not be able to meet these criteria.

Also, once the City has finished with the process of harmonizing its zoning bylaws, it can make sure that the remaining body rub parlours are out of the residential neighborhoods where they have caused so much disturbance (because as “holistic centres” they were immune to the zoning regulations that did apply to body rubs)

The benefit of this solution is that health practitioners effectively regulate themselves through their association. They are not regulated by a bureaucratic apparatus that assumes beforehand they are something they are not.

On Thursday afternoon between 2 and 4 City Council will meet to discuss and vote on a revised holistic centre by-law. A bit of background is necessary. The original holistic centre by-law was enacted in 1998 as an attempt to curtail the activity of illegal body rubs parlours posing as legitimate practitioners of massage, shiatsu, reflexology etc. The by-law has been a massive failure, however, since it lacked a way to keep fake practitioners from acquiring a holistic centre license. As a result, instead of discouraging body rub parlours it has actually encouraged their growth.

David Pinto, a polarity therapist on the frontlines of this struggle, has argued that the city needs to address the sex trade more directly by doing away with the holistic centre by-law and increasing the number of body rub parlours licenses from the current twenty-five. His reasoning is as follows:

The City could have allowed more body rub parlours to be licensed and kept them out of residential neighborhoods through zoning, but they were afraid they’d be seen to be supporting the sex trade. So instead, they decided to create a new license for Holistic Centres and Practitioners and try to control the fake “holistic practitioners” that way…which now costs the City $2.5 million a year in enforcement costs.

If the City had used the screening mechanisms that our stakeholders committee had suggested in 1998, that would have prevented impostors from getting licenses. But the City ignored our suggestions and the resulting bylaw has (1) allowed over 2000 sex workers to become licensed as a holistic practitioners; (2) imposed increasing fees on legitimate practitioners to pay the costs of going after the illegitimate practitioners, and (3) imposed onerous and inappropriate restrictions on legitimate practitioners by treating us as if we were members of the sex trade.

This process has been fraught with politics. The consultation with stakeholders that began in September 2004 was suddenly cut short this May and many recommendations that would have alleviated the burden on legitimate practitioners were set aside. Then, after being informed that the by-law was on hold, possibly all summer, the Planning and Transportation Committee suddenly announced that they would be hearing deputations on the matter. Stakeholders were given four days to prepare. Despite this short lead time, the legitimate practitioners made a presentation that was impressive, logical and compelling. Indeed, Councilor Ootes emphatically stated that he was convinced of the need to treat legitimate practitioners separate from the sex trade enforcement issue. The stakeholders left the meeting feeling buoyed and confident.

The next day, however, everyone involved received a bracing reminder that City politics is a loaded game. In the Toronto Star, City Hall reporter Paul Moloney stated emphatically: “Holistic clinics welcome crackdown: Legitimate operators want sex workers out Happy to pay higher city licensing fees.” As evidence he quoted Alex MacDonald, a professional lobbyist representing the Edmonton-based Association of Massage Therapists and Wholistic Practitioners (AMTWP). The reporter mentioned no one else.

I was present at the deputations, however. MacDonald, was the only complementary health representative to support the report. Every other deputation given not by Mr MacDonald or by an employee for the House of Lancaster Strip Clubs argued against the by-law since it unduly punished legitimate practitioners by treating them as potential sex workers. The adult entertainment industry reasonably just wanted to get rid of a stiff competitor in the male arousal business. After Mr MacDonald’s contribution I recall thinking, rather ungenerously perhaps, that he had a similar if different motivation: to get rid of all legitimate, touch-based health practitioners who are a not a member of his association. Although Mr MacDonald and the AMTWP have since changed their position to be more in-line with the other health practitioners who presented that day, the damage was done.

Ultimately, the Planning and Transportation committee accepted the by-law report with a few qualifications, most notably holding the line on fee increases. I believe that Howard Moscoe summarized the committee’s feelings when he stated “We are halfway through the quicksand, we need to keep moving ahead.” However, until the issue of the sex trade is separated from the issue of legitimate health practice the holistic centre by-law will remain unfairly burdensome. The city itself recognizes that the body rub parlours are moving into Nail and Tanning Studios. This fact indicates that the body rub/sex trade problem is not only an issue affecting “holistic centres.”

In the NorthRonces.com neighbourhood, this issue directly impacts The Herbal Clinic & Dispensary and Sukha Health Spa. We encourage everyone who supports our community health practitioners to let their city councillor know that the Holistic Centre by-law is unfair and should be replaced with a tool that regulates the sex trade and no one else.

For more background to this issue please see “Body Work or Bawdy Work?” published in Vitality magazine.

I have just read the first mainstream press comments on the EcoMupi trial. Lisa Rainford of insideToronto.com and the Bloor West Villager writes, “Residents trash large sidewalk garbage bins.” The reporter interviews citizens from the area who pan the EcoMupi’s because of their ungainly size and the fact that the placement and design emphasize the advertising over the recycling. The city’s big four papers have yet to comment or even publicize the fact that a public trial is going on, so good work Ms. Rainford. I sent a couple emails to the Toronto Star’s “GTA” section and did receive one response. Hopefully they will let their extensive readership know that they too can have a say in this matter. For our part, we once again encourage you to fill out the City of Toronto’s online EcoMupi survey. Also, please let us know if you come across any other recent published comments on this issue.

There has been a rumour just beginning to emerge on the street that the High Park Lofts at Roncesvalles and Ritchie are to go above the seven storeys originally planned. I actually had one person tell me with full assurance that it would go 20+. Gulp.

I thought immediately that this was impossible. Yet there was the pile driver still noisily pounding support beams into the ground two months after schedule. My “source” claimed that this was clear evidence that they had to “go deeper” to support a taller structure.

Well, I have been on the phone with people who should know and this is what I have found: There is NO TRUTH to the rumor that the High Park Lofts will be any more than the planned seven storeys.

The rep at the Stinson Properties office laughed off the suggestion stating that the building was already 75% sold and any changes to the suites at this point would create more trouble than it was worth.

The office of Ward 14 Councillor Sylvia Watson also shot down the rumour stating that they were aware of no official submission to change the site plan already agreed upon. They also said they would definitely know if Stinson had requested such a change.

A pile driver clangs away at the High Park Lofts, Roncesvalles and Ritchie.

In Toronto, it is very difficult to push zoning variances through city hall without the public knowing since each change has to be announced and debated in an open forum. Indeed, Toronto developers often complain about the difficulty of getting a “Section 37” agreement that would allow “bigger and denser properties than normal”. The following quote from Catherine Porter’s Toronto Star article about the lack of ambitious and aesthetically pleasing architecture in Toronto is posted (perhaps proudly) on the City of Toronto web site:

Toronto councillors…make it their business to oversee development in their wards. A building might fit the city’s official plan, but if the community is opposed, the local councillor will push to derail it.

“Our system suffers from a surplus of pseudo-democracy,” says developer Stinson. “The local politicians basically perform for the cameras.”

That power is not one they are likely to give up.

“They like to be seen getting things for their communities. If it’s all done by bureaucrats, they’re not getting the credit,” says Barbara Leonhardt, Toronto’s director of urban development policy and research. “The ward system drives that kind of behaviour.”

That doesn’t seem so bad to me. By the way, the “Stinson” referred to is none other than Harry Stinson the developer of High Park Lofts. I am not suggesting that anything of the sort happened in this particular case, but, more generally, god bless pseudo-democracy.

So, don’t always believe what you hear. Right now it seems there are no worries, unless of course the proposed seven storeys already seems too tall to you. NorthRonces.com’s position is that if kept to its planned dimensions the High Park Lofts’ triangular, flatiron design, glassed-in courtyard atrium and underground parking looks promising as residence, as architecture and as a boost to our North Roncesvalles neighbourhood.

I was about to write a completely positive blog entry. It began:

NorthRonces.com would like to thank Mary Ellen Mitchell of Dresser’s Clothing and Gifts and the Roncesvalles Business Improvement Area (BIA) for completing the beautification of the Roncesvalles planters…

Excuse me, Mary Ellen, I will have to return to this issue later. You have a done a fabulous job filling out the streetside planters with vines and grasses but two things happened that made me change tack and once again I feel the need to rage against the City’s bureaucratic attack on the everyday life of our North Ronces community.

First, Eucan’s EcoMupi–otherwise known as “the giant electronic billboard pretending to be a recycling bin”–went up yesterday in front of Saks Fine Food’s at the Corner of Roncesvalles and Howard Park. While it is true that an EcoMupi is a rather stylishly designed garbage bin, seeing it in person reveals it as still more massive “ad” than “eco”. Not only do EcoMupi’s use electricity to illuminate their most obvious feature–two 7 foot tall billboards–I also found it difficult on first glance to determine exactly what refuse material went where. They are also positioned diagonally across the side walk for maximum visibility for both cars and pedestrians. This results in one end hanging awkwardly over the street making it a rather large obstruction on the sidewalk and less convenient for depositing trash. For some reason, Eucan has decided against placing actual advertising in the EcoMupi during the City’s trial period in favour of an appeal to the public to participate in the trial. Um, how are we supposed to fully experience the thing in action if it does not display ads? It certainly will have real advertisements if the trial is successful. What kind? It would be helpful to know.

EcoMupi at the corner of Roncesvalles and Howard Park.

Second, the Roncesvalles BIA sent out a reminder that the city’s new “A Frame and Mobile Sign” by-law has been passed and will come into effect this September. Now, the purpose of this regulation is to make it difficult for local businesses to let potential customers know where they are and what services they offer. The concern here is that a pedestrian may stumble over an A frame and possibily sue the City. So businesses now have to have at least 2 million dollars in general liabilty insurance and list the city as an additional insured party. Of, course there will also be a yearly fee of $200.00 on top of the insurance demand. This by-law applies to other signs as well, although it kindly allows Real Estate signs to be exempt.

Well, at least both initiatives make the city money (“oh goody”). Isn’t Mayor Miller supposed to be a proponent of Toronto’s diverse neighbourhoods and grassroots community. Eucan’s electronic billboards will, for the most part, advertise non-local products and businesses, while the no-tech, small business A frames are of the street, of the local businesses, and a crucial part of the hurly burly aesthetic of our street. Is an A frame an obstruction? Much less so than the giant EcoMupis. On Roncesvalles, the A frames are often fun and inventive and, at the very least, informative. Would a truly “pro-neighbourhood” mayor discourage the latter while promoting the former. I don’t think so.

What is becoming more and more apparent is that David Miller’s Toronto is less about neighbourhoods and small business and more about locally insensitive regulation of the most regressive kind. Think about it. Who will be most easily able to afford the insurance and the licensing fees required by the new by-law? The cash poor but innovative small businesses just starting out, or, the already established companies who can easily absorb these fees as just another tax deduction?

In the case of the EcoMupi trial at least we can still Vote No. And, Mary Ellen…thanks again.