Should by-law officers in Toronto be equipped with guns and be able to make arrests? Mayoral candidate Giorgio Mammolilti proposes this strategy as a means of curbing graffiti and other street crimes, since by-law officers are often the first on the scene or encounter petty crime while on their daily beat. But everyday citizens are also often first to discover these kinds of wrongdoings by wrongdoers, but (like by-law officers) also lack training as a police officer.

A nasty feud between two families in Pickering got way out of control this weekend. It started with a landscaping job that resulted in flooding of a neighbour's basement, then escalated to violence against trees. After one neighbour sought to enhance their privacy by planting trees between the properties, the other neighbour allegedly came out blazing with a chainsaw and cut down eight of them.

Financial instability in the materials recycling operations business in the GTA and beyond is resulting in an overflow of used glass and styrofoam and plastic, some of which is having to be shipped to far away lands to be processed. It kind of defeats the purpose if used consumer goods that are meant to be repurposed via recycling have to be shipped using fossil fuels, doesn't it? The question is, how do we fix this problem? The province may step in with changes to waste diversion laws, forcing producers to fully fund municipal recycling programs.

A massive condo project at a 20-hectare site at Victoria Park (known as the Quarry Lands) is being met with protest by area residents who feel that a seven-fold increase in density is not appropriate or desired. The area was approved for this type of development way back in 1968, when is was believed that the Scarborough Expressway would be a reality.

22 workers at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel have been fired after it was discovered that they were taking "unused bottles of wine from non-public areas for their own use." I'm not sure that this means that they were stealing wine from the cellar, or they were dredging what was left in bottles that were left over after diners finished eating...but either way, it was against their workplace rules.

In brief:

A crackdown on the solicitation of prostitution on the Danforth has resulted in charges against 86 men.

Four in ten Canadians are retiring with debt. A survey by the Royal Bank shows some concerning stats about those who are ending their careers by still paying on mortgages.

Photo: "Not my hand" by andyscamera, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.