Morning Brew: January 8, 2009
Photo: "Honest Ed's" by byronjyu, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
The Bloor-Yorkville Cartier boutique was held up by unsophisticated gunmen yesterday. Apparently the burglars went after the lower end goods in the store. I'm not so sure that's a bad idea, though. I'm no expert on crime and dealing stolen goods, but I'm thinking it may be easier to quietly peddle "lower-end" Cartier. Besides, the return on investment will be impressive no matter what when you acquire goods for free.
A somewhat more sophisticated criminal had his west-end grow-op busted yesterday. The unnamed suspect had expertly dug a tunnel between two neighbouring houses, which he owned, and he could shuffle plants back and forth between the basements, which were closed off from the tenants occupying the rest of the houses. The seized plants were worth $385,000 so I get that this business is lucrative, but somebody with that much ambition and know-how could probably go far in the world. Legally.
From the public service department, Statistics Canada is warning that a fraudulent agency is calling people and requesting personal information under the guise of StatsCan. As much as you may be tempted, don't be giving out your credit card, bank account or other personal numbers over the phone (unless you know for sure it's legit).
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The Ontario government wants manufacturers to take more responsibility to reduce the "tsunami" of packaging on the products we buy. The move makes sense - the amount of packaging on every little thing we buy is ridiculous and often frustrating, although calling it a "tsunami" seems a bit much. But you know it's bad when special packaging cutters are produced - and sold inside heavy duty packaging.
After lengthy debate and passionate outcries from both sides, the city's first Africentric school was approved a year ago. Now the school is in jeopardy before it ever opens as only 15 students are enrolled, 25 less than is required to hire staff. Enrolment will remain open into February, but unless the numbers pick up, expect to see the empty wing of Sheppard Public School stay empty.
Toronto native Brad May is joining the Leafs, bringing a veteran presence for the young team. Actually, it's more like nepotism as Brian Burke surrounds himself with familiar faces.
Comments (14)
"Now the school is in jeopardy before it ever opens as only 15 students are enrolled, 25 less than is required to hire staff." - Oh how unfortunate it is...
LOL @ "But you know it's bad when special packaging cutters are produced - and sold inside heavy duty packaging."
Everytime that commercial comes on my boyfriend and I just laugh and shake our heads. Talk about a massive FAIL.
Why would StatsCan even need credit card numbers and bank account info? I really hope that in this day and age, people think first.
Re: Cartier Robbery
I guess the criminals saw the paid-duty cop in the Rolex/Royal De Versailles store, so they went to Cartier instead. I wonder if Cartier is gonna get a guard cop now?
Tip for anyone who doesn't already know: never give any personal info to anyone who calls you, regardless of where they say they are from. If its legit, hang up, call the number to the company you're trying to talk to and then give any appropriate information.
"The seized plants were worth $385,000 so I get that this business is lucrative, but somebody with that much ambition and know-how could probably go far in the world. Legally."
Not really. For anything worth-while, you need hefty start-up capital. Grow ops allow you to start with minimal costs, and scale up/out fairly quickly. The SMART guys grow their operation to a sustainable size, launder the funds and gradually transfer them into legit investments, and after a successful run (2-3 years) quit the illicit game altogether.
The idea is to quickly generate start-up capital for a legitimate business. Grow ops are the perfect way of doing this for those who are highly competent and willing to do the high-risk thing for a (relatively) short period of time.
Re: Packaging
The reason behind clamshell packaging is a simple one: Walmart.
It is a requirement that anything that is likely to be stolen be encased on a sealed clamshell package (as opposed to the ones that have snaps or are only sealed on one or two sides for ease of opening. (the package opener is in a clamshell for the same reason, to stop people from opening it and using the tool on other packages in the store)
Talk to Walmart and leave the manufacturers alone. Their 'requirement' needs to be addressed before we start putting restrictions on manufacturers who really have no choice but to do as Walmart says or risk losing their homes.
$385,000 is the police estimate of the value of the marijauna. So you can divide that figure by about ten. At least.
Al, I understand that it would be natural to assume the police inflate their numbers for publicity, but has this ever actually been shown? It's fairly easy for someone with some street smarts to do the calculations and check their numbers, so why haven't we heard of widespread allegations of this sort of thing?
Or could it be that -because- it's so easy to double check, the police wouldn't be stupid enough to inflate their estimated value for fear of the inevitable backlash.
What's the scandal in exposing inflated pot bust figures? The public doesn't defend marijuana, and wouldn't when it comes to weed vs police, so that idea is silly. Let me ask you this - if they don't inflate the value in dollars, why is it in press releases the only number you hear about IS the value in dollars?
Because it's a much bigger and impressive number in print than saying the guy was busted for having "200" lbs of it. And with what seems like no standardized method for determining and presenting these figures to the public, in my opinion how about some reason why they WOULDN'T inflate bust amounts. Heh, inflated busts.
Ask the guys who were arrested and will be tried under the "street value" of the drugs, vs. the actual value/quantity... in trafficking charges, street value can weigh heavily on the sentencing.
It can also sensationalize the story enough to cause public fence sitters to further vilify weed trafficking, since more drugs = bigger bad guys in general opinion.
However, I don't know if these figures are really that inflated... $350,000 of street value pot isn't *that* much.
No, Ryan, the police wouldn't be stupid enough to inflate the value, because we know that the police are always truthful in all their dealings with the public.
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