R.S. Konjek/Gleaner News File Photo

The bats are back. The Maple Leafs are swinging once more in Dominico Field at Christie Pits, and marked the 100th anniversary of the Intercounty Baseball League with a home opening 10-6 win over the London Majors on May 6. The Leafs, which have won five games to two this season, play every Sunday and most Wednesdays. Games are free.

For more information, please visit their website at pointstreaksites.com/view/mapleleafs.

—Annemarie Brissenden/Gleaner News

Computer engineer’s love of Annex leads to gallery café

Slanted Door (422 Bloor St. W.), a new gallery café opened on Bloor Street West late last month. It’s owned by Patrick Jabbaz, who wants to promote work by emerging artists from Toronto. GEREMY BORDONARO/GLEANER NEWS

By Geremy Bordonaro

Daylight pours through the window of the café. Customers sit, sip coffee, and enjoy the splashes of remarkable colour that adorn the walls from paintings by new and emerging artists from across the city.

This is Slanted Door, the Annex’s newest café and art gallery, which is owned by Patrick Jabbaz, Silicon Valley engineer turned businessowner.

“I’ve always had a love for the arts,” said Jabbaz, adding he wanted to give back to the community he loves so much. “I was an engineer for the last 20 years, designing electronic products, so I’m not an artist myself. But a lot of artists are having a hard time making a living doing what they love. I wanted to help out, even a little bit.”

Jabbaz wanted his art gallery to stand out so he located it at 442 Bloor St. W., which is well known for the bee mural done by Nick Sweetman. The artist has also been commissioned to do several murals inside Slanted Door.

It’s part of Jabbaz’s aesthetic — preferring to highlight the work of new artists, particularly those from the neighbourhood.

“I wanted local artists,” he said. “I didn’t want famous artists. I wanted emerging artists, local, from Canada. I contacted a few artists and there was a lot of interest in showing their art in here.”

Thomas Lappano’s Still Series is currently on display in the café, originally home to The Futon Store. GEREMY BORDONARO/GLEANER NEWS

Despite Jabbaz having bought the building, there was still an issue of funding. To that he had a fairly simple but well-thought-out idea.

“Little did I know that art galleries need a lot of funding: they don’t make a lot of money. So I coupled it with a coffee shop. I wanted it to be trendy, inviting, and to have a good atmosphere.”

“The space, decor, and what we serve draws people in,” said Michele Lee, the gallery café’s manager. “We are supporting local artists and I think that’s something that people can appreciate as well.”

One such artist is Thomas Lappano, an up-and-coming artist and OCAD University graduate whose Still Series of portraits is on display.

“Patrick reached out to me by email. He had seen my website,” he said. “He asked me if I was interested in being a part of the show in the art gallery he was opening. It sounded really interesting and I was totally excited about it.”

A highlight of the gallery, Still Series captures a series of moments. Together, they form an evocative narrative from a beautiful, colourful, and modern perspective.

“With this series I wanted to explore the portrait as a narrative,” said Lappano. “I was really interested in taking snapshots of a moment, right in the middle of an action.”

Lappano is also excited to have work on display near to home.

“It’s nice to have the opportunity to show work in a public setting, in the neighbourhood I live in.”

Jabbaz himself is also no stranger to the neighbourhood.

“When I was younger I used to go to a lot of parties here. So I’m familiar with the neighbourhood,” he said, explaining that he went to Ryerson University. “I lived here for quite a while but I moved to California. I was going to be there for two years but I got married, had kids, worked so much, even moved to China for a while. I just wanted to come back here.”

While the lavish lifestyle of a jet-setting engineer may have been appealing, there was something that needed to change.

“I loved my job as an engineer but I wanted a challenge,” Jabbaz said. “I wanted to do something totally new, that I had never done before.”

And so far, there’s been a steady flow of customers at the café.

“It’s been good. It’s been nice, very steady. It is locally known for the moment,” Lee said.

Hybrid Spaces, Partly Natural and Partly Engineered (2015) by Dan Berman, from Accidental Parkland, a documentary project that showcases the city’s changing environment. Curated by Berman, this collaboration with U of T’s New College and Daniels School of Architecture, Landscape and Design is on from May 10 to 20 and includes visual exhibitions, talks, documentaries, screenings, and Beadwork by students at the First Nations School of Toronto. Accidental Parkland is part of the Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival, running this month at locations throughout Toronto. COURTESY SCOTIABANK CONTACT PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVAL

MORE COVERS:

ON THE COVER Palm Sunday pageant (Spring 2018)

ON THE COVER: Artscape Wychwood Barns 10th anniversary (March 2018)

ON THE COVER: Wage protest (Jan. 2018)

ON THE COVER: Snowshoes and a red sweater (Dec. 2017)

ON THE COVER (Nov. 2017): Remembering

ON THE COVER (Oct. 2017): Transitory night

ON THE COVER (AUGUST 2017): Setting up for a new season

May shift to women only next year

By Geremy Bordonaro

A temporary drop-in homeless shelter at 348 Davenport Rd. is once again home to controversy. Some local residents say that there’s been a noticeable increase in violence and drugs in the area since the shelter — publicly supported by Joe Cressy (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) and the Annex Residents’ Association — opened in January.

“We have seen a significant increase in crime in the Davenport area compared to last year. It’s safe to say that this is due to the shelter,” said Staff Sergeant James Hogan of the Toronto Police Service’s 53 Division.

Steven Boujikian, who runs a laundromat near the shelter, said there’s been a huge increase in crime.

“There’s way more crime…way more violent crime. People shooting up on the streets. Even a few weeks ago someone walked into a local bar and died. Just on the spot…How is that acceptable?”

“Since the shelter opened,” said Cheryl Zimmer, a tenant representative at 250 Davenport Rd. who provided this photo, “we have seen an increase in people coming into our building, doing drugs in the stairs [and] hallways, and then leaving to go to the shelter.” COURTESY CHERYL ZIMMER

“Since the shelter opened,” said tenant representative Cheryl Zimmer, “we have seen an increase in people coming into our building, doing drugs in the stairs [and] hallways, and then leaving to go to the shelter.”

“This whole thing was uncalled for,” said Boujikian. “It just doesn’t fit in the area. You have all these homeless people walking around with nothing to do, causing trouble…. You can ask anyone in the area. Ask them ‘was this a bad idea?’ and they’d say ‘yes!’”

Cressy acknowledged that “respites are challenging…. They are challenging for the residents and they can also be challenging for the neighbourhood.”

However, he didn’t offer much of a solution.

“The purpose of a respite is very much that of a band-aid. It is to provide an emergency response to ensure the people have a warm place to go in the cold winter months.”

Cressy added that respites simply are not good enough to provide adequate safety for the neighbourhood and those within the building itself.

“What respites don’t have, because they’re open on an emergency basis, is that comprehensive series of supports” he said. “They don’t have all of those supportive programs to help people get out of homelessness. That’s the distinction.”

Boujikian said that the police also haven’t been very effective in addressing the increase in crime.

“The police are ignoring us,” he said. “They’re doing nothing with our complaints. Nothing to help us.”

Hogan conceded that resources have been stretched, and that it’s been difficult to respond.

“We’ve done what we can to help the community but it’s been tough.”

“The clientele that uses these respites are often homeless, dealing with addiction issues, mental health issues, and they’re hard,” Cressy said. “There’s no question that it’s hard.”

The councillor said that there needs to be a way to address homelessness in Toronto.

“It’s not enough to just do band-aids, these respites. What we need to do is create supportive housing facilities where people can transition out of homelessness,” Cressy said. “The objective here can’t just be to provide shelter. We need to have a program to end homelessness.”

The shelter closed at the end of April. It will be redeveloped into a women’s shelter with residents who will stay between three to six months. More amenities are also planned, as well as programs to help the residents find more permanent housing. This new program will be the first of a new model of shelters that Cressy says “are a stark improvement”.

—with files from Terri Chu

READ MORE:

NEWS: Shelter offers temporary respite (March 2018)

When preservation leads to deterioration

Designated a heritage property by the City of Toronto, crumbling and neglected 6 Walmer Rd. is causing problems for its neighbours. AHMED-ZAKI HAGAR/GLEANER NEWS

By Ahmed-Zaki Hagar

At over 120 years old, 6 Walmer Rd. is at once a crumbling symbol of the area’s rich history and, a sign of the city’s inability to protect its built heritage. And it’s causing no small amount of problems for the neighbours.

“When I initially moved [here], it was not an issue. It was an abandoned house,” said Neil Jain. “Over the years, it has been deteriorating. There have been a number of issues.”

These include litter that attracts rats and other pests, graffiti covering the house, and a type of loitering best left to the police to handle. Then there’s the hole in the roof, which has been there since at least February.

Built in the Queen Anne style, which was popular in the Annex in the late nineteenth century, 6 Walmer Rd. was originally number 2 Walmer Rd. and designed by architect Frederick Henry Herbert for Presbyterian minister Thomas Goldsmith and his family in 1896. It’s one of five Walmer Road properties designed by Herbert designated as a heritage property under the Ontario Heritage Act.

Many houses of a similar style in the area were replaced by apartment towers during the latter half of the twentieth century, but 6 Walmer Rd. remains — boarded over, covered in graffiti, and a hazard to the neighbourhood.

Sandra Shaul, chair of the Annex Residents’ Association’s (ARA) heritage committee, described it as the “highest-profile negligence problem in the Annex”.

“Over the years, we filed 311 requests for garbage, for graffiti, for various issues,” said Jain. “A lot of times, especially in the past couple of years, I have seen it would take weeks or months before any action is taken.”

Shaul said that sometime after she moved into the neighbourhood 32 years ago, somebody bought the property and fixed it up so “that it looked better than new. It was beautiful.”

However, when 6 Walmer Rd. was rented, according to Shaul, there were issues between the owner and the tenant, which was where the problems began.

Jain contacted Albert Koehl, environmental lawyer and vice-chair of the ARA, who investigated further into the matter.

“When I saw what the condition of it was and heard from the neighbour, I was quite disappointed to see little action by the City [of Toronto] in terms of ensuring that the property owners keep the property protected,” he said.

Koehl sent a list of bylaws from the Toronto Municipal Code that the owner of 6 Walmer Rd. was violating, such as maintaining the heritage property’s “character, visual, and structural character”. Other bylaws state owners must minimize damage from natural causes or neglect.

The municipal code says owners can protect their property by boarding up all doors and windows to prevent people and animals entering the property.

Municipal Licensing & Standards enforces the bylaws for maintaining heritage properties, but Koehl questions how committed the city is to heritage preservation if it does enforce its own bylaws.

“After doing all of [the work of researching a property and designating it], there does not seem to be any kind of follow-up, enforcement, or interest,” he said.

Adding to the problem is that it’s not clear who owns on the property, as there’s conflicting information on the public record. According to the Ontario Land Registry, the City of Toronto owns 6 Walmer Rd., which is confirmed by an official from Municipal Licensing & Standards. However, a search of the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation database yields different information, and lists the owner as NSCL Investments Limited. And there’s a record of an owner applying to demolish the property in 2011, an application that was refused even though a staff report did state that there was “concern for the future of the site”.

Shaul said the city should secure the house to prevent further damage, and invest in its restoration.

“Even if it were not a heritage site, you do not want a house in that state in your community,” she said. “It becomes a beacon for vagrancies, for drug deals, for pests. That should not be permitted.”

It appears that it’s not the only property in the area lost in a limbo of preservation and deterioration.

“Another one is 10-14 Prince Arthur Ave., and if you look at it, that is really a sad story,” said Shaul. “That house is the last of the Yorkville houses, those wonderful white houses that were characteristic of Yorkville in the early 1800s.”

As the house’s ownership switched hands over the years, the property began to deteriorate. Today, 10 Prince Arthur Ave. is fenced with its windows barricaded by bricks and its white paint falling off.

“When you see that house and you think of what it looked like through the years, you would want to cry,” said Shaul. “Any city with any civic pride would insist that people keep up a minimum standard of maintenance.”

Neither Heritage Preservation Services nor Municipal Licensing & Standards responded to repeated requests for comment.

READ MORE ON HERITAGE ISSUES:

CHATTER: Kensington Market HCD enters planning phase (Nov. 2017)

CHATTER: University to appeal Ten Editions heritage designation (MAY 2017)

NEWS: Restored Brunswick House reopens (May 2017)

NEWS: Kensington Market to become heritage district (May 2016)

NEWS: Mad House: Madison dweller alleges harassment over heritage home (Nov. 2010)

Community centre emphasizing accessibility

The new rooftop playground at the Miles Nadal JCC will feature natural elements, equipment that encourages learning through play, and be accessible to children in wheelchairs.

By Geremy Bordonaro

The Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre (JCC) is fundraising to build a new rooftop playground at its home at Bloor Street West and Spadina Avenue. A large portion of the funds has been raised in memory of Al Green on behalf of his family but there is still a little way to go before the construction begins.

The centre’s existing playground has served the community and the 125 children who attend school there well for a long time, but it is time for an upgrade, according to Harriet Wichin, executive director of the JCC.

“It’s flat now. It just looks like some dirt with some nice trees. We tried a natural playground for a while,” she said. “Now we’re trying to stay ahead of the curve. We’re doing what is necessary to keep the playground accessible.”

[pullquote]“They’re going to have just so much fun engaging with all the new materials in the playground”—Parveen Virdi, assistant director, JCC[/pullquote]

A key focus is making sure that all children from 15 months to five years, regardless of ability, will be able to enjoy the space. The surface, which is currently flat and made up of wood chips and dirt, will be changed to rubber at varying elevations, and there will be enough space to accommodate those in wheelchairs. There will also be many natural elements and gardens. There will be different rubberized pieces — similar to a large Lego set — that can be used to build whatever a child could dream up and help inspire creativity.

The JCC is working with architectural firm Land Art Design to help bring its vision to reality.

“There are many unique challenges to designing on a rooftop,” said Joaquin Sevillano, an associate at the company. “You have to keep weather and safety in mind…. As far as I can tell this is one of the only playgrounds of its kind in the city.”

A key goal is to create an opportunity for young children to learn and grow.

“It is designed for what is known as emergent play,” said Sevillano. “Kids will have the opportunity to learn through many different methods on this playground, whether it be through nature or otherwise.”

The design is in line with the JCC school, which is focused on creating emergent play that facilitates learning in a fun environment.

“The notion with all of our schools is ‘learn through play’. The idea is, even if you look out there [in the playground] now, you can see all the children are playing with trucks, nature, and different things. That’s the sort of learning we aim for,” said Wichin.

“It will just inspire the children,” said Parveen Virdi, the assistant director of children’s education at the JCC, who is ecstatic about the new playground. “[Children] have so much curiosity and imagination and they’re going to have just so much fun engaging with all the new materials in the playground.”

Meanwhile Sevillano, who worked on the plans, said that the JCC has been a good partner throughout all of this.

“The JCC have been great,” Sevillano said. “Generally they have been giving their feedback to us about what types of things they want to see in the playground and we’ve been putting them in. It’s a great relationship.”

To learn more about the JCC’s fundraising campaign for the new playground, please visit www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/milesnadaljcc/campaign/playground. The centre expects to break ground this year once the fundraising is complete.

MORE ON THE MILES NADAL JCC

NEWS: MNJCC makes giant splash (OCTOBER 2016)

NEWS: Miles Nadal JCC submits electronic roof sign application (MAY 2017)

All seven of the registered candidates running for election in University-Rosedale have been invited to participate in an all candidates meeting at Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church (427 Bloor St. W.) on May 23 at 6:30 p.m.

The local residents’ associations and BIAs are sponsoring the event, which will include an opportunity to ask questions of the candidates.

—Billie Wilner/Gleaner News

The buzzer sounded for the last time until the leaves fall at William H. (Bill) Bolton Arena (40 Rossmore Rd.), near Bathurst and Dupont streets. The arena has been closed for mechanical upgrades, and all of its skating programs are cancelled until October. Some other options for skating and hockey while the arena is closed are Moss Park, McCormick, Forest Hill, and North Toronto Memorial arenas.

A portion of Vermont Square Park behind the arena will be used for contractor staging, while the corner of the park at Rossmore Road and Vermont Avenue will be used for parking and storage. According to a City of Toronto Forestry and Recreation flyer, work will be organized to minimize impacts on park and street access, trees will be protected, and surfaces and sod will be restored once the work is complete. The wading pool and playground will remain open.

Opened in 1971, the Bill Bolton Arena provides programs that respond to community needs and complement local facilities. It includes a rink, pro shop, and snack bar. It runs hockey camps, house leagues, adult hockey and skills programs, and public skates.

For further information about the arena or its programs, please visit www.billboltonarena.ca.

—Annemarie Brissenden with files from Billie Wilner/Gleaner News

Councillor Mike Layton’s (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina) eighth annual kick off to Bike Month returns May 27 from 12 to 5 p.m. at Christie Pits Park.

Bike with Mike is a free, family-friendly community cycling event open to anyone who wants to participate. It will feature a free barbecue and many children’s events like bike decorating, bicycle-themed story telling, and tricycle races. There will also be free bike safety checks, tune-ups, and community cycling information.

The annual Kids Bike Swap, which is held in conjunction with the events, starts at 10 a.m. Parents of children ages 4 to 12 can drop off their child’s outgrown bike and pick up a new, better fitting one from 1 to 5 p.m. Celebrated every June in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, Bike Month promotes bike-centric events aimed at improving the health of Canadians and the environment.

—Billie Wilner/Gleaner News

There Goes the Bride opens at the Tranzac stage on April 26 and runs until May 5.

Directed by Martin Edmonds, the play follows Timothy Westerbury in 1970s England, an overworked advertising executive whose daughter is about to be married. Laugh along as the family navigates the stress of a wedding and Westerbury’s controversial marketing ideas. There Goes the Bride is written by Ray Cooney and John Chapman, and the show is produced by special arrangement with Samuel French Inc.

Founded in 1976, the NAGs Players is a non-profit community theatre group based in the Annex. Multiple performances are held throughout the year at the Tranzac stage at 292 Brunswick Ave., just south of Bloor Street West.

For tickets and more information about There Goes the Bride, please visit www.nagsplayers.com.

—Billie Wilner/Gleaner News

More how nice!

EDITORIAL CARTOON: How Nice (Spring 2018)

EDITORIAL CARTOON: How Nice (Mar. 2018)

EDITORIAL CARTOON: How Nice (Dec. 2017)

EDITORIAL CARTOON How nice! (August 2017)

EDITORIAL CARTOON How nice! (July 2017)

EDITORIAL CARTOON: how nice! by blamb (June 2017)

EDITORIAL CARTOON: TCHC (May 2017)

EDITORIAL CARTOON: The Grand Tory (April 2017)

FORUM: Celebrating 20 years of cartoonist Brett Lamb (April 2017)

EDITORIAL CARTOON: A second chance! by Brett Lamb 2037 (February 2017)

EDITORIAL CARTOON: Not really! It’s actually nice! by Stumpy the Subway(January 2017)

“Folks are working their backs off for minimum wage,” said Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC) leader Doug Ford recently, after announcing he would block a promised minimum wage hike in favour of a tax break. According to Ford, this would give a full-time worker earning $14 per hour about $800 more in net income every year.

Crunch the numbers, however, and you’ll discover that he’s really pitching a lose-lose proposition. Blocking the wage hike will leave the province without about $500 million in tax revenue, something Mr. Ford readily acknowledges. It will also leave minimum wage earners with far less in their pockets than if the plan to increase the rate to $15 per hour minimum were passed as promised next January.

A person who earns $14 an hour and works 40 hours a week has a gross income of $29,120. They’ll have $1,751 of deductions for CPP and EI, leaving $27,369 in pre-tax income. They’ll deduct the $10,354 tax exemption to arrive at taxable income of $17,015. Ford has said that he’ll wave the provincial tax, so they’ll only pay $2,552.25 in federal taxes. After deducting $2,552.25 from $27,369, a person earning $14 an hour will have net income of $24,816.75.

A person who earns $15 an hour and works 40 hours a week has a gross income of $31,200. They’ll have $1,888.49 of deductions for CPP and EI, leaving $29,311.51 in pre-tax income. They’ll deduct the $10,354 tax exemption to arrive at taxable income of $18,957.51. They’ll pay $957.36 in provincial and $2,843.63 in federal taxes. After deducting $957.36 and $2,843.63 from $29,311.51, a person earning $15 an hour will have net income of $25,510.52.

So a person earning $15 an hour, paying both federal and provincial income tax, still nets out ahead of the person earning $14 an hour paying only federal taxes by $693.77.

(We note that if a person is earning either $14 or $15 an hour, they are still living just above the poverty line, which the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives defines as annual net income of $20,811.)

We mused here recently that the provincial Liberals acted rashly when they increased the minimum wage from $11.60 to $14 effective Jan. 1, 2018. Though the goals of a liveable wage are laudable, we argued, they are not sustainable if it leads to an economic crisis for employers unable to absorb the increased expense.

But — judging from the many “for hire” signs along Bloor Street — the sky has not fallen as a result. Faced with exorbitant increases in rents and property taxes, a few bucks more to the staff is apparently a drop in the bucket, and has not visibly sunk the ship of any business within our catchment.

We are still cautious about Bill 148, The Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, which passed in Nov. 2017. In addition to increasing the minimum wage to $14 an hour, and promising another increase to $15 hour next year, the bill contained many sweeping reforms that are hard to quantify. It’s hard to know how many workers will take advantage of more paid sick days and paid personal days, for example, and it’s not clear how measures designed to level the pay of full-time, part-time or temporary employees will manifest itself. We can find no analysis of the true cost of this.

What is clear is that the Ford team isn’t spending a lot of time developing a credible platform. Instead they’re focused on a bait and switch, denying an increase only to replace it with a tax break of lesser value. Perhaps they hope voters will think of the tax break as an additional benefit for workers in the lowest tax bracket. In fact, though, it’s a take-away, one that these people can’t afford.

READ MORE EDITORIALS: 

EDITORIAL: Lessons to be learned from Excessive Force (Spring 2018)

EDITORIAL: A social contract is a precious thing (March 2018)

EDITORIAL: Intolerance leading to Quebec’s decline (Dec. 2017)

EDITORIAL (Nov. 2017): Student safety suffers as trustees cave

EDITORIAL: Pandering to religious intolerance (October 2017)

EDITORIAL: Bike lanes, good for business (Fall 2017)

EDITORIAL: Don’t sacrifice safety for political gain (August 2017)

EDITORIAL: Thank you Mr. Asti (July 2017)

EDITORIAL: A watershed moment (June 2017)

EDITORIAL: Revoke U of T’s unchecked “licence to build” (May 2017)

EDITORIAL: Westbank’s positive precedent (April 2017)

EDITORIAL: Foreign buyers tax a necessary cliff jump (March 2017)