#9005 - Oct 1990

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Digital Archiving Completed by the Ethnography Lab, A University of Toronto Anthropology Initiative and Produced in Collaboration with David Perlman/Wholenote Media Inc between July-December 2015. Page 4, Kensington Market Drum, October,J990 Canopy Deal Defi.nitely in the Works Market Matters ' '" - by David Perlman According to Marc Baraness, head of City's Urban Design Division, there's still hope for more than forty Kensington canopies. As we reported, Public Works is hot to trot with their plan to get rid of all canopies that are not in compliance with Tornto's streets by-law. We predicted last issue that an Urban Design Division planner was recommending solving the problem by trying some-. thing brave - seeking to have the Market recognized as a public amenity. Baraness, head of Urban Design, however, dismissed the -idea of pursuing municipal "distinct society" status for Kensington - "a design solution" he said "could be found". His response was frustrating to Kensington people who have seen the Public Works Department block any idea that did not meet the letter of the law. If unconfirmed reports from the Planning Department are true, Baraness is proposing a much simpler plan. For every merchant who wants to try a canopy design that meets Public Works' objections, Baraness will come up with an architect who will work for free with that canopy holder. In some ways the suggestion is disappointing because it sidesteps the real issue: a real live · open air street market needs to be governed as a market, not as a collection of streets. But Baraness' idea is better. Lots of store owners will be helped along the way. And eventually some architect will have to figure out a way to make the canopy housing Cafe La Gaffe and three other stores "temporary, unenclosed, and easily removable" (which is whatPublicWorkswants).And when that happens, the argument over what can be distinctive in a Market will hot up -again .. An Apple a Day for 40 Years Ben and Luba Baum Retire by Masha Buell There's a tiny empty storefront on Kensington A venue which a casual passerby or tourist might not notice at all. But Kensingtonians of all sorts are missing Ben and Luba in a big way. You wouldn't think an older couple with a little fruit stand could have such an impact on the lives of so many people, but they did. You can tell the regular shoppers these days because they stop and do a double take, noticing right away that the few baskets of fruit on the outdoor stand outside #63 Kensington are not what the Baums would have had. Nothing wrong with the stuff --but it just not the same. On Saturdays, the cars pull up in front of the empty storefront, and then move on. No offence to anyone else, but they wanted a bushel of Baum's apples, or Baum's pears, or the sweetest carrots in Kensington. And you knew that Luba had examined every one of those strawberries herself. Individually. People walking through the market very early in the morn , ing, also stop and look, puzzled, maybe glance at their watch. Accustomed to picking up a few bits of fruit on the way to work or school, they would stop for a chat with Luba while she waited for "her boyfriend" Ben to pull up in that battered old blue pick -up truck. And maybe wind up late for wherever they were going. But arrive an improved person. P.ut one perfect, field ripened Ontario tomato on the Baum's little scale, and a tough-look- · ing finger poked in the price. And then you'd stare gravely at the price together. And then, after a pause, Ben or Luba would say "thirty-seven cents" in exactly the same way as if you'd spent thirty seven dollars. And then say "Take! Take and eat! To your hungry children who, it happens, are eyeing a bushel of crisp new pears. But you paid for that tomato. And if you hang around you might get a recipe for something. Or success stories about their own children, all living and working in worlds vastly different from Kensington. Listen to them talk with customers who are the grown-up children of customers they've known for forty years. They came at a time when Europe was a fearful place. Cautious, hard-working people, they needed a place where they could do something real to secure the future of their family. And Kensington was that place. But unlike many others who came, with that security obtained, they stayed. They haven't lived in the market for years, but they kept their little store going, in all kinds of weather, doing their bit for humakind, and themselves, and Kensington. Luba and Ben always said that someday it would IJe the right time to retire. And when the time came, the decision was typically straightforward. Ben needed a cataract operation - and meantime he'd been told he shouldn't drive. And contrary to all appearances, the little blue truck couldn't drive to the Market on its own. So it was time. Ti01e Running Out on Restaurant By-Law by David Perlman The restaurant control bylaw of July '89 is in its dying days. There's a report in the final stages recommending a permanent by-law. The new by-law, we hear, would limit the size of new restaurants, and make it possible for merchants to provide housing above stores without having to provide parking. , Such a by-law would have cut at least in half the two years it took to get permission to build apartments above this bakery . See Picture C And it would make possible apartments like these Picture A over a bakery like this Picture B. More residents in the Market mean safer streets, all day and all night. DRUM offers some space free of charge for information about community events. 72A Kensington Ave., 2nd floor. 977-0192. •• I ~ 2 You Call, We Haul (no frills. rio spills) Al)ywhere in M ~tro or the GTA Call (24 hrs) 925-6800 best rates NET ••• WORI~ (the bottom line) ld Cftyof .----~------:---------: Toronto .................... , t>oc ... ~w \ ~TJ Starting a new business? Looking for wap to increase business? Visit the Toronto Business Self-Help Office at City Hall and find out how it can help you. Plan to attend one or more in the series of specially-designed seminars offered during Small Business Week. Monday October 22 Open House: Toronto Bu~iness Self-Help Office, main floor, City Hall, 4.30- 6.30pm Seminar: "Starting a Small Business" Committee Room #3, 2nd floor, City Hall, 6.45 - 9.00pm Tuesday October 23 Open House: Toronto Business Self-Help Office, main floor, City Hall, 4.30- 6.30pm Seminar: "Tax Planning for the Small Business" Committee Room #3, 2nd floor, City Hall, 6.45 - 9.00pm Wednesday October 24 Open House: Toronto Business Self-Help Office, - main floor, City Hall, 4.30 - 6.30pm Seminar: "How to Sell to the City and Metro Toronto" Committee Room #6, 2nd floor, City Hall, 6.45 - 9.00pm Admission is free, but registration is limited. Call392-6646 before Friday, October 19 to reserve your place. Telephone Communication for the Deaf 392-0415. Interpreter services available in Chinese, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Urdu at the information sessions. ft1- ~ ;g IH ~ ~ ~ ~~ ttH~ t1 Havera servi~o de intt!rpretes em cada uma das sessiies de infonna~iio. Sponsored by:, Planning and Development Department Equa!OpportunityDivisionand ~ -~ MUlticultural .Access Program · Management Services Th)partment Ministry oflndustry, Trade and Technology Des services d'interpretation seront disponibles a chaque atelier d'information. Per ogni gruppo di lavoro saranno disponibili dei servizi di interpretariato. Habra interpretacion en cada uno de los talleres. ~__.; .Jf if- ,..-~ ~ - ~ _)Y.f u~ 2!__ L _ _J
Digital Archiving Completed by the Ethnography Lab, A University of Toronto Anthropology Initiative and Produced in Collaboration with David Perlman/Wholenote Media Inc between July-December 2015. Market Matters Garbage Crunch by Mike Milando After two meetings to talk about garbage in the Market, attended by residents and merchants, a number of initiatives are underway concerning city collection and composting of garbage. While restaurants everywhere have every night pickup, as does neighbouring Spadina Avenue, Market merchants have pick-ups only two nights a week and feel this is poorly inadequate and more importantly, unfair. "We need an extra pick-up each week", says Sam Lunansky of August Fruit Market. "There's a Market in Kensington Market". · At the last meeting of the Kensington garbage action group at303 Augusta, local residents and environmental workers agreed that the merchants need and clearly deserve an extra weekly pick-up. Some residents feel that the threat to , merchants of private garbage disposal costs putting them out ofbusinessextends to the whole neighbourhood. The Kensington Market wouldn't be the Kensington Market without the Market, and after the merchants could not afford to do business here, most of us would not afford to be able to live here. Things would change. But local residents and environmental workers together are seeking ways to combine this immediate merchant local concern and their wider concern for environmental preservation and health. They see the estimated 4 tons per day of merchants' organic food waste as potentially 1 ton of compostif it were recycled. But the City, who won't give the merchants another weekly pick-up, doesn't have a composting site Task Force Refuses· to Quit by David Perlman Following Councillor Amer's resignation as chair of the Kensington Task Force, City staff have brought forward a report recommending that the task force be abolished as a committee of council. That staff report was before a meeting of the City neighbourhoods committee September 19. Kensington residents and merchants at the meeting challenged staff's position that the work of the task force was done or under control at the staff level. The committee did not vote on the staff recommendation to can the task force. Instead, that staff report goes to a meeting ofthe task force, with both City Councillor Amer and Metro Councillor Martin in attendance. The date of that meeting has not been set. That meeting will have to produce a solution, or several: - the community wants political power and wholistic planning; - the politicians want to be able to take to their councils recommendations that hve a chance of passing; - city staff think they have enough regular "official channels" to cope with as it is, and don't want to have to deal with another one. The staff/council threat to terminate the task force has been beaten back. But it's a clear sign that, without changes to the Task Force time is running out. Big Fish On Augusta either. Robert Rex of the Friendly Chameleon says there are farmers and others who want the organic food waste for composting. But for them to pick it up from merchants is either too uneconomical for them, or its schedule is too haphazard for merchants. The breakthrough here is that many merchants are saying they are willing to separate their garbage at the source to get it collected. The last meeting of this garbage action group included local residents, merchants, environmental workers, and City and Metro officials. A letter is being drafted by the group to City Councillor Liz Amer urging her to support the call for an extra pick-up a week. Also a sub-committee of the group is drawing up a survey for merchants, to try to confirm that there is support for the Group's "Tuesday, Thursday Saturday" City-collection call. The group also hopes to get information on quantity and breakdown of individual business's garbage. Research of the potential users of the organic food waste is continuing, as is research into commercial and residential composters. Exactly how to organize the extra pick-up is not clear but a request has been made to the task force to get the political Kensington Market Drum, October, 1990, Page 5 Market Residents are practically dwarfed by great gobs of ~all rolling now. There is no garbage time to lose. ----tl KENSINGTON ENVIRONMENTAL 1-1 - Osler President John Andronakos, Gus Mbambatstikos of Aegean Fish and Osler VP George Kalomiris at the opening of Osler's mew Kensington branch; with John and George holding American Red Snappers. On the right is Mike Rost'eing, leader of Band-Calypso. Boris Smith A NEW face in Kensington Market is the Osler Fish Terminal, at 194 Augusta Ave. Last month's opening of the store, which, under the management of George Kalomiris offers a variety of fresh fish and live lobster, was heralded with music by Band-Calypso. The company, headquartered on Osler Street, supplies hotels and restaurants around Toronto and is already known to Knob Hill Farm customers at Dixie-Weston. Osler also has a store under construction in Cambridge, as well as plans for another in Scarborough. Asked if this was the right time economically to be opening a new venture, Osler President John Andronakos said, "If you take into account the growing movement towards health consciousness, then our kind of stores meet that need." Existing Kensington market fishmongers interviewed by DRUM said they were not concerned by the new competition. It's not garbage! Nothing is wasted when soybeans are made into tofu and soy milk. These barrels of soft moist ground and cooked beans, with all the valuable milk spun out of them will be sent off to farmers for Livestock feed. (see LEARNING WITH YOU on page 18) Waste redudion. Put in your two cents ... , and Metro will put out dollars. Most people think they could tell the government a thing or two. Well here's your chance. If you're part of a non-profit group in East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, Toronto or York, Metro would like to hear from you. Tell them how you'd reduce garbage in you!' neighbourhood. They'll not only listen .. they might pay you up to $2,000 to put your plan to work. (Larger organizations with waste reduction experience could-receive up to $20,000). So put in your two cents worth todday. It could mean a lot... to all of us. Call 392-5420 to apply for your community action wa~te reduction grant today. The first two deadlines for applicati9ns are October 15, 1990, and January 15, 1991. Someone' s Garbage is Someone' s Gold Here's the list of what you call garbage that someone out there is willing to take from you, (sometimes even to collect): asphalt, concrete, clean fill, drums, drywall, food and organic waste, glass, metal, paper, plastic and rubber, textiles, tires, wood, and miscellaneous. How can you make the connections? Call392-4200 and ask for your free copy of the Metropolitan Toronto Recycling Markets Directory. Or direct your specific questions to DRUM.
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#9005 - Oct 1990

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