#9103 - Apr 1991

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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. 2 TALKiNG .. ·RvM TALKING DRUM ••••••••••••••••• _ LAST TIME WE REPORTED The Kensington Market Drum, April1991 ftt'·· •• y .. ........ .. Getting Through We are still young enough as a paper to think that the paper itself is still news. And the news is that we're ~ow almost set to do the job we dreamed of when we started . • This issue puts us squarely on a monthly path so we'll be able to offer our loyal advertisers and contributors a greater . measure of predictability. Also this issue welcomes the people from throughout our distribution area (Queen to Harbord, Euclid to McCaul) who are helping to carry this DRUM to their own neighbours. We're feeling good. about getting through the winter, proud that our little "4x4" (4 pages by 4 thousand copies) is close to a ste.ady "16x16 ". And feeling better still because of how many people in our area are getti1/g interested in using DRUM. Images of KENSINGTON MARKET in the media: in these recessionary ti~es, we see Kensington represented as a place where food is cheap and plentiful. But recently in one of the daily papers it was a place where people go hungry while good food, deemed unfit for sale, rots on the stands and is th.:rovm away. Oh the shame. It wasn't a fair picture. Food· banks d~ly take s~all quaniities of ~ perishable fodd. And Kensington pitch~s in willingly. We know merchants in Kensington who offer people having a hard time cheaper or just plain free stuff. And we know that there are brigades of low-income (or just plain savvy) folk who descend on Kensington with buckets and rubber gloves and shopping carts, and walk away with large quantities of carefully 3elected food free for the price of their ~ffort. But some Kensington people, homeless people, fall through the cracks of this haphazard safety net. So, here's an idea. There are quite a few places around that offer pre-made sandwiches and cold food item"> for homeless ·people. But these meals are not usually very nutritious. So, what if they came to participating market stores to collect perishables that end up unsold? Day-old whole grain bread, cut cheese portions the wrong size for picky customers, cold meat in slightly damaged packaging, tuna in dented cans (either it's ok or its not), lettuce, avocados, fruit. Anything that can be made into a sandwich ' or sc~ubbed, cut into pieces and eaten raw. They wouldn't need cooking facilities, just room for people to make for themselves and each other nutrit~ous snacks to eat there, or to carry with them. Better nourished people can better help themselves. Making your own food is good for self-esteem. , So, Kensington, who would participate? And before that, how's the idea? Drum is a publication .of KensinQton Market IJrum, 2A Bellevue Avenue, Toronto, MST 2NA Drum is published monthly. Phone or fax (416) 599-DRUM for information on deadlines. Drum is distributed free door to door between Queen and College, Bever~ and Euclid; from College north to Harbord between Spodina and Bathurst. And it is available at the commercial outlets listed in the map guide, as well as at selected outlets across Metro. For schools and study groups, up to l 00 copies of Drum are available, free of charge if you collect. Drum is available by subscription, outside our door to door distribution area. lhe cost is $18 a year. Back issues are available. hems in Drum credHed to individuals are in the copyright of those individuals. Points of view in such Hems are those of the writer, not necessarily Drum's. a new garbage pickup schedule underway PUBLIC WORKS has something to say, see ad pg. 4. a meeting to try to organize a Downtown West Network (of social services) not much doing since that meeting but another one coming up in May. a public meeting at Western Hospital, April17, 6:15pm see ad next page. We hear 5000 flyers are going out too. Will people be there? the city saying no to expansion of the chicken packers' plant at 54112 Kensington. No word on what the packers will do. Their plant sits on a site that the ·city and community would love to discuss. a benefit for I) RUM upstairs at the Santa Fe May 16 Yes indeed. 'See pg. 11. that DRUM as a collective · sometimes disagree with things people say in our pages. Do we have a responsibilty to say when we disagree? that some people were outraged by Cisco's stereotypes. And this time some will think we censored .him. that a community based group Deep Quong Nonprofit Homes was interested in 106 Beverly street).- the St. Rafael Lodge. A spdkesperson for the· Deep Quong Board said April 3 that there were happy to announce funding is forthcoming for 106 Beverly. · that the TTC is battling to get priority for streetcars on King and Queen Streets. · But they still refuse to ask the province to revise the law that is blocking their efforts. that Anne Mason Epps had been honoured after her death with a Constance Hamilton Award, Immersion What? 21 March, 1991 Dear Editor: Regarding Chris Melo' s report on the "Outward Bound" wilderness school: I too participated in an Outward Bound course, the summer of 1981, but my experiences were quite different from Chris's. In four days, I was nearly killed, a friend was nearly killed, I left the course crippled by "immersion foot", and my clothes and other belongings were stolen. Yours truly, Paul Cerar Princess Margaret Hospital Proposal Disentitles Children The Princess Margaret Hospital, a radiation therapy treatment centre, proposes to move from its present location near Sherbourne and Wellesley Streets to a new site in downtown Toronto near University A venue and College Street adjacent to the Ontario Hydro Building. The new site places the rear of the hospital immediately diagonally aGross the street from Orde Street Public School. The proposed hospital will given by the city to people significantly improving the status of women in this city. And now an attempt will be made to bring some of her unfinished research and writing to fruition. Contact Kay Parsons at 598-5850. that ACT for Disarmament had opened a military counselling hotline. (416) 531-5850 • I I ttt~A~ CL'} (JJ \ that some children from around here would "drop fake dead" Sat. April6 at 3:00pm to draw attention to daily child deaths wordwide. · And so they did. See pg. 9 that some young girl should know that no-one has the right to hurt her. The KIDS HELP number, again, 1-800-668-6868. ••••••••••••••••••••••••• letters to DRUM 24 Bellevue Avenue, Toronto, M5T 2N4 be nineteen storeys with seventeen storeys of the building cantilevering over Murray Street as the existing site cannot accommodate all of the proposed building design. - There are presently some 400 children located in the immediate area of the new site. The children are enrolled either in the school, the school's child care programme or in the day care centre across the street. The numbers of children will coQtinue to grow as a new day care centre at George Brown College Nightingale Campus located a short distance away on Murray Street, will soon open. The hospital will bring with it to the school environment and that of the adjacent child care centres, tremendous increase in traffic in an area that is already congested; · the movement, storage and use of radioactive and other hazardous materials; dominating parking structures; degradation of air quality both in and outside the school; loss of a well used and only park in the area; disruption of school classes during construction; and the effects of shadowing and wind. The present increase in traffic has already resulted in three accidents, one very serious involving young children attending Orde School. The hospttal has deemed the level of risk to the children from radioactive and other hazardous materials as acceptable. As parents of vulnerable children, we are concerned about any level of risk. Our children are our future and are our most valued assets. Children are one of the most vulnerable groups in our society and children must be afforded every protection that not only governments but all of us can .provide. The principles of this protection are embodied in the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, an accompanying document to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights are intended to be inclusionary and speak to the entitlements of children. These entitlements include "opportunities to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and continued on page 9
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. The Kensington Market Drum, April 1991 NEWS & VIEWS 3 Task Force Report Conflict Guidelines Mean Change of Approach · by David Perlman City administrator Frances Pritchard was greeted with frustrated amusement when she advised the task force what the city solicitor had said. Underthe City's strict conflict of interest rules task force members would qot be able to make any recommendations on any matter where they stood to benefit financially. "But we were brought together to make recommendations for the health of the market" was one bewildered reaction. The Solicitor will provide more details atthe next meeting (April 24) but already task force members are reading the writing on the wall and looking for ways to comply with a rule which seems designed to ensure that people who make their living as lobbyists will have an easier time of it. There's agreement among task force members that it will be next to impossible to achieve the things they're pursuing without the active assistance of the local councillor. Now only the councillor will have the right to tum task force opinions into motions and recommendations that council must consider. Never On A Tourist? The sorry story goes on. The task force has been trying to find out what it takes to get tourist status (ie the right to be open on a Sunday). So Metro sent back a reply which ammounted to "Don't worry about being a tourist area, anyone can open on a Sunday." The only problem? That very day the Sunday shopping law was upheld. So Metro won't be able to duck the question. What kind of clout do you have to have to be called a "tourist area"? Dollars and Cents Also coming up at the April 24 task force meeting the city finance departrn\nt is actually going to try to answer the question as to whether Kensington is a generator or consumer of city revenues. · The smart money says it depends if you exclude services that are in the community but not altogether of the community. If you do it's no contest. Objectoftheexercise?Tomake an argument for the city paying for some of the things the task force wants to recommend. East Market Report "Praised but how to do it's the question" is how one task force member described reaction to the East Market Report. They agreed that what needs to happen is for the various city commissioners to · see it and for the councillor to arrange a meeting between those commissioners and the task force - so the commissioners can explain how they'd take an unscientific community document and tum it into a plan of action. At time of press task force members were hoping to convey continued next page •••••••••••••• COP TALK by Colin Puffer Merchants Under Pressure Lately, Market area merchants have been feeling pressure from many directions: a generally poor economic climate; the GST's effect on increasing consumer's resitance to spending; and the difc ficulty customers are having in finding a space to park where they won't be ticketed. The recent spate of shootings can only compound these problems. There is a growing impression throughout Metro that Kensington is a dangerous placeto shop. . The response from 14 Division has been to increase police presence on the streets. The foot patrols and spot checks reported in the last Drum have continued. Supt. Clark Winter of 14 Division says that the higher visibility is designed to convince people that Kensington is safe because "every place you look there is a policeman".Somemarketmerchants have wondered if this approach might not be counterproductive, as it gives the impression that an area needing this high a police profile must truly be dangerous. There is evidently a need for greater cooperation and communication between the police department and the community that it serves. Community Based Policing Two issues ago the Drum reported on a move)o implement, in 14 Divison, something called "community based policing". Initially there were 2 groups looking for a way to bring cops and community closer together-Dne headed by Supt. Winter and one that developed out of a meeting of concerned 14 Division residents. These two groups converged at a meeting held at Alexandra Park Community Centre on January 30. At that time a sub commit.tee (headed by Kevin Lee from St. Stephen's) was selected to draw up the terms of reference for a community/police liaison committee. A draft report of this sub committee was drawn up and presented at a meeting at St. Stephen's House on Wednesday, April 10. The report recommended dividing 14 Div. into 4 geographic areas with 5 members who represented the· demographic of each zone sitting on the main committee. Lee's sub committee also recommended that 10 police officers, representing what Supt. Winter calls a "vertical slice" of the department, should sit on the committee. This over all group will be chaired by Kingsley Roby. Roby is a ware that "some things transcend geography~' and hopes to rely on a combination of public meetings and committee meetings to transcend any barriers that may result from what is a necessarily arbitrary division of the area -into the 4 geographic zones. He stresses that above all no one wants the group to operate "out of the public eye". The Drum will make every effort to keep Kensingtonians informed about what could be an important step forward toward getting the type of policing the community desires. ~ ~ . Support Your Community: Become a Member of St. Stephen's Community House The Toronto Hospital Invites You to attend a . Community Meeting to discuss the Future of Your Hospital What Is St. Stephen's? St. Stephen's is a multiservice social agency operating out of six locations in the Kensington area. 'Programs address the needs of new immigrants and refugees and are provided in Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, English and other ·languages. Programs include The Comer (for homeless men); The Drug-Free Arcade(drugpreventionforyouth under 18 and their families); English-As-A-Second Language & Citizenship classes; Conflict Resolution Program (a neighbourhood mediation program); seniors and adults programs, Youth Employment Counselling Centre, two daycares, March Break and Summer Day Camps, A.I.D.E.S. prevention/ education and Chinese Chapter For Bereaved Families. What Does Becoming A Member Entitle Me To? As a member of St. Stephen's Community House you will receive an Annual Report and newsletter. If you are over 16, membership allows you to vote at the Annual Meeting. The cost of membership is only $2.50 per person or $5.00 for the whole family. If you become a member before May 6th, 1991 you may vote at our Annual General Meeting to be held in conjunction with our Volunteer Recognition night on Thursday, June 6th, 1991. Call JoAnne or George now at 925-2103 fora membership form and join usat91 Bellevue Avenue on June 6th at 6:00p.m. THE TORONTO HOSPITAL Wednesday, April17, 1991 6:15p.m.- Open House 7:00p.m.- Presentation The Atrium, Fourth Floor Fraser M. Fell Pavilion 399 Bathurst St. Subject: • The Redevelopment of the Toronto Western Division • Plans for the Leonard Avenue Parking Garage Refreshments will be served. We look forward to seeing you on April 1 7. For more information please call369-5444.
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#9103 - Apr 1991

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