Hydro-Quebec robocalled me the other day to warn me that my neighbourhood will be deprived of electricity tomorrow most of the day. I’m planning to bring the laptop to the Grande Bibliothèque to get things done from there, but it won’t be first thing in the morning.
Updates from April, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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A few minor changes may be coming in our booze laws – I actually never knew that you haven’t been able to bring home leftover wine from a resto as neither I nor any of my friends has ever found ourselves in that predicament.
Article also says it will be permitted to have a drink in a restaurant without ordering food, which sounds like it may end that silly business of establishments that are functionally bars but are operating under resto licenses having to make clients order food if they want a drink.
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C_Erb
That’s a change that won’t be welcomed by the kitchen staff in bring your own wine joints. When I worked in one as a dishwasher and cook, we usually left work quite drunk from the unfinished bottles of wine that were sent back to us. Sometimes clients would get so drunk that they would forget that they brought wine and resulting in uncorked bottles coming back for us to enjoy.
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Kate
There’s bound to always be some leftover wine not worth toting home and you can always count on some people still being too tiddled to notice.
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Robert J
Whether you run a bar or a restaurant, you want to be able to stock the maximum variety of products while paying the minimum permits. Clients make a mental note of places that have limited permits and don’t go back.
Some people will have you believe that liquor permits protect the community for alcoholism and public intoxication. The most socially “problematic” bars are large format ones because they are environments that are hard to monitor and they create nuisance on a large scale. Those establishments will always pay for the most expensive permits, while smaller ones will try to get by with a partial one. Small places are better for the community, because they provide a friendly, casual environment for drinking and the potential nuisance is on a smaller scale and easier for staff to manage.
Multiplying permit types encourages the nice, small places, to be driven out of town by big commercial chains and makes the bar scene boring and ugly. A single permit that includes all products and doesn’t distinguish between restos and bars would even the playing field and be better for the community.
But the government likes the system as it is, because it allows them to squeeze more money out of small places that can’t afford the better permits, while preventing them from having a competitive variety of products.
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Police are seeking five young people in connection with prankage that brought the metro to a halt last Monday. They covered their faces with shades and scarves and may be hard to find.
This Tuesday evening, something burning was noticed on the tracks at Lionel-Groulx, which caused an evacuation and stoppage on the green line. Nobody has linked this prank – if indeed it was a prank – with any group.
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Ian
A prank, now? At least concerted acts of vandalism have some nihilistic cachet, this just sounds like drunk frat boys tipping cows.
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Montreal Pita on Beaumont was badly damaged by fire early Tuesday. Let’s hope this doesn’t mean a citywide shortage of souvlakis all dressed.
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What does the future have in store for Montreal? Looks like more condo buildings. There’s a show at Complexe Desjardins till April 30 displaying maquettes of future developments, overwhelmingly condo complexes. A bit more here about future trends mentions the abolition of outdoor parking lots and major autoroutes.
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Martin
I used to sell TVs and VCRs and the trick was to highlight and exagerate shamelessly the one or two features that were OK. “look it has a REMOTE”! I feel that’s exactly how municipal officials are talking these days about condos. “look it has rooms and a kitchen, and people can live in it”….
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Chris
hmmm, Martin, what do you feel is missing? A garage, driveway, and white picket fence? Not everyone wants the suburban thing.
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Martin
Chris: what is blatantly lacking is housing for low income dwellers. #2, big projects are developed without significant consultation in the hoods – only fake consultations are taking place. #3 the impact on speculative trends are huge. And #4, many of these condos are cheap and will not last long. These are the first “customer doubts” I had on the top of my head.
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Kevin
How about some shops within walking distance?
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Ian
What’s also missing is units for families – there is a real dearth of 3-bedroom units in both the rental and condo markets, which I suspect is part of the reason so many families are hightailing it for the suburbs even though the urban quality of life is good.
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Kate
Ian, I was just coming to add that to Martin’s list. The city definitely has the power to zone for a lot of these things that we on this blog, who as far as I know are not trained urbanists, can see clearly are needed to create a real living neighbourhood and not just more rows of cheap dormitory housing for people who are between youth and true maturity, which in Quebec is pretty much defined as “move to a suburb and reproduce.”
Tremblay’s administration has run several campaigns to convince people to stay in the city, but they’re empty unless a way is found for more people to have affordable living space in town while they have a couple of kids. And that means establishing new daycares and schools in new subdivisions as well as providing units big enough for families.
I think we have a theoretical disconnect here where the needs of the developers are given far too much importance, and what they need is to build very small condos very fast for a quick buck. The city seemingly does not have the will to hold this back, since it’s running on the common neoliberal credo that powers most of our governments now, that the market is all-holy. A Projet administration might be able to change this a bit, if we had the guts to vote one in.
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Robert J
Condo towers are boring, and I don’t ever want to live in them. But they do bring money in to the central city, and they bring people into the streets downtown, which are fairly empty in Montreal. It’s annoying that rents and price will go up, but I don’t want to live downtown anyway. Up the orange line from Berri is way cooler.
I do go downtown from time to time and I’d want to more often if there was more activity in the streets (in the same way spending 10 minutes per year in midtown Manhattan is kind of worthwhile). Let’s just hope some of these yuppies have a secret repressed cool side to them.
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The city has plans to spiff up Saint-Viateur East, a three-block stretch mostly running between old industrial buildings east of the Main.
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William
That’s pretty lol to have put a picture of Saint-Viateur WEST
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Michel
There’s a new bouldering gym that just open there on the weekend. Don’t know what it will do to spiff up that part of the street, but it’s good news for folks like me who don’t always have the time to trudge down to Pointe St-Charles all the time.
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Kate
Well spotted, William.
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A naked man scaled the cross on Mount Royal Tuesday morning, was taken down by the fire department’s rescue squad and brought to hospital.
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The city and its police have been ordered to pay $18,000 in damages in a racial profiling incident back in 2007 when police allegedly mistreated a man of Arab background.
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Spock
Racist pigs :P
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A young man who bolted from police in Villeray later had to call them for help because he’d got stuck in a chimney while hiding from them.
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Two of the three major student groups have agreed to a 48-hour truce while they negotiate with Line Beauchamp. CLASSE says they’re not planning anything in particular but have not agreed to the formal truce.
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Scratchiti, accomplished with tools or acid, costs the STM half a million yearly and is nearly impossible to eradicate.
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Ian
I’ve seen plastic film applied to the metro car windows to prevent scratchiti, I’m surprised a similar treatment isn’t used for station windows & bus shelters.
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Kate
The article mentions they’ve been experimenting with something like that at some metro stations but implies that it too gets damaged and has to be replaced.
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Robert J
They could also just give up!
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Robert H
Robert J:
Rome! Ça a l’air de New York dans les années soixante-dix! Jamais!
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Robert J
jk lol mais c quand même impressionant!
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A group of U.S. investors now owns the Montreal marathon, which puts in question why it should benefit from public assistance of various kinds.
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Josh
Because it is still a large event important to the city? Last time I checked, F1 wasn’t owned by Montrealers. For most of the 2000s, the Habs weren’t either. The Alouettes haven’t been owned by a Canadian for many years. The Red Bull Crashed Ice event that happens in Quebec City every year clearly is not an all-Canadian production, yet municipal officials there recognize that it’s something that benefits the city.
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Kate
If you read the article, you’ll see that half of the text gets into the question and how it’s being raised in U.S. cities as well. It’s not answered, it’s just questioned. So I linked to it. Nobody here is saying anything about the issue either way.
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qatzelok
@ Josh: “Because it is still a large event important to the city?”
If it’s so important, why is it being bought and sold like a used washing machine on eBay?
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Robert J 10:56 on 2012/04/25 Permalink
Is this your full time job or are you just a superhero blogger?
Kate 11:06 on 2012/04/25 Permalink
It isn’t my full-time job. In fact I am looking for more graphic design and writing work, especially to cover summer, when things get a bit slow. Anyone who needs a smart temp to fill in for people on vacation is encouraged to email me here.