The issue of the city backing Bixi with more millions is now a very hot potato at city hall, leading the mayor to accuse Richard Bergeron of stupidity. Tremblay’s party refused to divulge details about the deal, although it’s going to be debated as of tomorrow.
Updates from May, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Beleaguered city auditor-general Jacques Bergeron sent in his annual report today, and it criticizes a lot of the city’s recent choices and decisions as being sloppy and bad for the city’s finances. Inevitably, he also gets in a dig about the spying scandal in which he has found himself implicated.
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Metro has a report on how the Medley is mostly gone with a picture of the condo project meant to take its place.
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Rich
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Carlos
Doesn’t look like they stripped much of it before demolition. I hope they saved some architectural details, if there were any left.
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The NHL is demanding $89,000 from the Basha’s restaurant on Ste-Catherine at Drummond, which hung out a banner showing the usual mustachioed man slicing shawarma – while wearing a Canadiens shirt.
One commenter has suggested everyone chip in to help the owner of the restaurant if the NHL proceeds with this small-minded corporate bullying, but I hope a general revolt at such greedy maneuverings will make the NHL back off. Even if the lawyers couldn’t help themselves, a simple cease-and-desist should have been sufficient.
Trying to destroy a small business in the name of a trademark – a symbol used in all kinds of ways all over town – works directly against the goodwill the team has spent a century building. I hope this realization will dawn on them. This is ridiculous.
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Josh
Same thing happened in Vancouver earlier this spring: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/car-dealer-ordered-remove-canucks-signage-001920630.html
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Kate
Yes, but silly though that was, the report says they were told to take it down, not told to pay thousands to the NHL.
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Ian
I wonder if the STM has to pay thousands for the “go Habs go” marquees on the buses… whoever’s idea it was to bring this suit should be forced to publicly apologize, fining fans for supporting the home team…
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Kate
Good point about the STM. And I can’t count the bars and other businesses that hang out the logo and other fan stuff during the season and the playoffs. I guess they’d be wise to stop doing that now.
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Stefan
they will settle for whatever the owner can come up without going bankrupt, thanks to intellectual property law. when non-profit organizations become that greedy, there is something very wrong.
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qatzelok
The lesson seems to be that local businesses shouldn’t support money-grubbing NHL franchises. Why didn’t Basha simply tag a bixi with a habs logo instead?
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Carl Guyot, the cyclist who was doored on Van Horne last week, has died of his injuries, the first cyclist death of the year here.
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Now that Christophe-Colomb has been stymied as a route south through the Plateau, traffic has moved to Chambord, the closest southbound street nearby, which isn’t making its residents very happy.
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Michel
I think part of the problem was, this being the first workday morning of the direction change, some folk were taken by surprise about Christophe-Colomb (although signs have been up for over a month), and just headed east until they found the first southbound road. Once they realise how inconvenient it is to take that Chambord (stop sign and not a light, speed bumps, no easy access to Amherst, etc.), they’ll change their itinerary.
Well, here’s hoping the do. It will be interesting when they put up a bike lane on Laurier also. -
S. Queyras
This is unbearable. I would have bought a condo for less on a busier street if I wanted to hear traffic and have it outside of my window. This is unjust.
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Since doing this blog I’ve seen periodic reports on mentally disturbed people being arrested and having their problems worsened after falling into the hands of the police, but the situation goes on. Police may not know how to handle such folks, or have no established system for moving them from the justice system into the health-care system.
Probably it’s often assumed the person’s intoxicated and mostly needs to sober up; while that’s likely true some of the time, clearly it isn’t always the case.
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Wheelchair users are demanding sidewalk terrasses become accessible to them, one spokesperson dismissing excuses that there’s no room to add ramps on the sidewalk.
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Freeloader
One of the French radio stations had this as top story. Now that’s what I call a slow news day!
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Kate
Monday mornings are almost always slow in the local news world.
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jeather
I expect that the mayors will “think about it” until the summer is over and it is too late, then decide that (some bullshit reason) means that as long as the interior of the restaurant is accessible, that’s good enough. I am not, perhaps, an optimist.
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Kevin
In the village, all the terrasses are built level with the sidewalks. I don’t know why restaurants in the Plateau feel the need to put their terrasses on a higher plane.
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no\deli
«Vision Montreal, the official opposition, is to present a motion in city council Monday proposing that Montreal become the North American leader in accessible terrasses.»
I’m speechless.
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Stefan
in this context i feel like citing f. vranitzky: “somebody who has visions should go see a doctor”.
according to RAPLIQ, the montreal metro will be accessible by the year 2194:
http://www.rapliq.org/en/2010/12/14/only-one-accessible-metro-station-in-3-years/it’s no fun either to carry a stroller up and down and even have to lift it over some turnstiles.
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Videos of the demolition: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?p=PL8808C033D77DF913