MB Toronto
Morning Brew: This apparently Ain't a Sustainable Bookstore, another plane crash near Buttonville Airport, security sweep at Allan Gardens, have you seen this cat?, John Tory supporters pushing him to join mayoral race
After serving Toronto's literary buffs for 30 years, This Ain't the Rosedale Library, a beloved bookstore in Kensington Market, has been closed on a court order because it owes a whopping $40,000 in rent. Even after moving from Church Street to a smaller shop in the market in 2008, it appears that the times are too tough for the indie booksellers, despite their best efforts and highly cherished status in the community.
For the second time this month a small plane crashed near Buttonville Airport. Yesterday evening, a Cessna operated by an aerial advertising company went down and crashed in a ball of fire in a vacant parking lot, killing the pilot.
The G20 integrated security team is keeping busy. The fence is nearing completion and, in advance of today's planned "All Out In Defense of the Rights of All" protest, RCMP and Toronto Police were up early conducting a sweep of the area around Allan Gardens. With just a few days until the circus rolls into town, we can expect to see a lot of police activity in the city in the coming days.
Not your typical missing cat poster: 
William Shatner (?) spotted on College St. by blogTO Flickr pooler Stevie P.
On a more serious note, have you seen this cat?
Officials at the Bowmanville Zoo are looking to the public for assistance in finding a missing tiger and two camels, and are offering a sizable reward for information leading to their recovery. The animals were returning from a west coast circus and disappeared from a motel parking lot in Quebec when the pickup truck and the trailer carrying them were stolen. The truck has been found, but the trailer and the animals have not yet been recovered. Animal welfare advocates are doubly peeved by these circumstances.
Although he's said he would run for mayor then said he wouldn't then said he might then said he's no longer considering it, John Tory has his supporters. One of the latest efforts to convince him to run for Toronto's top job (in a field of candidates that many are not exactly enthused about) is JohnToryForMayor.com -- a petitioning web site collecting names and email addresses of those who'd like to see him join the fray.
And here's what blogTO was up to this action-packed weekend in Toronto:
- Briony filled us in on a book launch for acclaimed photographer, illustrator, and master decor documentarian Todd Selby of The Selby blog.
- Matthew Harris reported in a number of Church Street heritage buildings that are facing the wrecking ball for a 25-storey condo development.
- Kevin and Briony were at the much-anticipated opening of Topshop on Ossington and the party for it (DJ'd by MTV's Dan Levy).
- Matthew McAndrew and Ivy were rocking the NXNE festival all weekend.
- Lauren checked the Beyond Imaginings: Eight artists encounter Ontario's Greenbelt exhibit at Harbourfront.
- Pat's garden adventuring took her to the Royal Botanical Gardens out in Hamilton.
- Gadjo reviewed Kabab Grill, where delightful mini-pizzas meet Lebanese shawarma and kabab.
Photo: "The Big Brother is watching..." by picturenarrative, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
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Unfortunately, partisanship has became a fact of life in Toronto's city hall, and the left wing seems to outnumber the right wing councilors. Any right wing mayor would have many challenges ahead of them if they were to be elected and would unlikely get anything done over the course of their term.
So Tory would have to leave his comfortable job to go spend 4 years getting yelled at due to his political affiliation trying to fix a broken city, get nothing done as a result and potentially damage any further political career in other levels of government.
Personally, I think all the mayoral candidates are crazy for wanting the job.
Anything I find only mentions delays for Thursday-Sunday and not really mentioning anything specific about delays that are happening before that (such as roads being preemptively narrowed or closed due to fence construction).
Clearly not cherished enough or they wouldn't be going out of business. Seems to me with all these independant bookstores on the verge of going out of business or already closed that they are using a flawed business model. A business model that comes to us from the 1960's, 70's and 80's. This is the 21st century. Get with the program and change to meet it or be left behind in the dust.
@ Ryan L - anyone who wants to run for Mayor with the mess they are inheriting needs to have a full medical evaluation. Nothing will change with the current flock of hacks and their constant bending over to every self-interest group with an agenda. Nor will it EVER change until the city is such a mess that the Province has to step in an take it over. That day may be sooner than people realize.
Oh and by the way gadfly, retail isn't a graveyard. I own a very successful shop downtown and all of my offerings can be found in all big box stores probably at half the price but also half the quality. I sell service and quality...an experience, I don't even attempt to compete on price or volume. If I did I would be out of business in a month.
In theory the store design was impressive. They had a basketball court in one part of the store, some kiosks in the middle with videogames promoting the latest sports video games (probably NBA Jam at the time) as well as other features I can't even remember.
What happened? Well, the store was packed most of the time, and to an outside observer you'd think they were making tons of money. Well, they weren't. They were -losing- money.
Teenagers were coming into the store to play video games and use the basketball court but weren't buying anything. In fact, the crowds of rowdy kids deterred many -actual- shoppers away from the stores (mainly Moms).
So, because they were a big company they simply started rebranding their store. They got rid of the basketball court, the video games and pretty much anything else that a young teenager wanted to see in a sporting goods store.
Simply put, book stores often suffer from this sort of thinking. They want people to come in and relax, put their feet up in a comfy chair and skim through their books without any pressure to buy...basically what everyone -wants- in a book store. However, this doesn't translate into sales.
It's not about corporate greed or anything of that sort, its about a basic understanding about running a business.
The irony in all of this is that independent shops are the natural ones and the original retail way that has always been. I believe a lot of the problem, besides ignorance of society, is how bad city planning is affecting the independent retailers. This also applies for any city, not just Toronto. Most of the people now live out in the suburbs or 905 bordering cities, but this is about very poor planning, no real downtown of their own and too many malls (malls do not promote or allow mom n pops) there. There are not enough, or no streetshop zones like in the older parts of the city (ie. Toronto) - which are also BIAs. Second, combine this with horrible transit/subway planning and lack of, which isolates people from these independent shops and doesn't give them much option up in the suburbs or sprawl. It seems to me that newer places or developments are plastic, unnatural and not practical. It is also clear that the early developers (see the older parts of the city) were actually the futuristic, common sense and smart designers and planners!
got it in one.
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