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.
