City in Brief
Smoked out
Smokers will likely have a harder time staying in their apartments or finding new ones. The landlord lobby group Corporation des propriétaires immobiliers du Québec, commonly known as the CORPIQ, told CJAD News that 35 per cent of the landlords it represents said they will include a no-smoking clause in their new leases. Complaints about smoking represent are the most frequent complaint the lobby group deals with now.
Strict on street hockey
A Dollard-Des-Ormeaux dad is contesting a $75 ticket he was issued after his son’s street hockey game received a noise complaint. David Sasson had organized a street hockey party for his son and friends but the game was broken up by public security, who pointed to a long-standing municipal bylaw making it illegal to play any game on the street. The law, however, is rarely enforced and even then only when a complaint is lodged. Sasson, who sent in his not-guilty plea this past week, said police twice asked the woman to retract her complaint, but she refused.
Passover puck mishap
A group of Dollard-Des-Ormeaux teenagers had to forfeit their semi-final hockey game Monday night because 10 of the players would be at home celebrating the first night of Passover, CTV news reported. The D.D.O. Civics worked an entire year to make regionals, but the Lac St. Louis hockey league has refused to reschedule their game. The league said they didn’t want to set a precedent which would force them to make exceptions for any of the other 350 participating teams.
Don’t drink and ride
Drinking on the bus or metro in Montreal will land you a big fine, some John Abbott College students found out last week. While riding the 211 from the West Island, a couple of friends took a few sips from the bottle of cider one had in her bag. Undercover transportation inspectors caught them, got the bus driver to pull over to the side of the road and slapped each with a $144 ticket. In 2009, the MTC handed out 95 tickets to people who were caught drinking while riding.
Disease-fighting syrup
Maple syrup is chalk-full of disease fighting antioxidants, according to a U.S. study. While testing samples of Canadian maple syrup, a plant scientist from the University of Rhode Island found 13 new compounds that are linked with improving or sustaining human health. The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers helped fund the research, providing $115,000 with the Conseil pour le développement de l’agriculture du Québec and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
Nation in Brief
No-go for gophers
The government of Saskatchewan designated the gopher a pest last week, giving municipalities the power to pass bylaws to have the animals eradicated. Gophers, officially called the Richardson’s ground squirrel, are now included in the Pest Control Act, which already made the removal and control of rats and grasshoppers, by any means necessary, completely legal. The province’s agriculture industry has struggled to deal with the animals as they tear up fields and land, so a rebate program was instituted in 2009 which reimburses farmers for half the cost of their gopher poison. The lack of love for the animal seems ironic considering the mascot of the Saskatchewan Roughriders CFL team is none other than “Gainer the Gopher”.
Advertising: not as easy as a . . .
the builders of a condo in Calgary have been forced to remove an ad campaign after it was the subject of online uproar for being too sexist. Point of View Developments said it was trying to appeal to young, professional men with the ads, some of which read “A $20,000 down payment is as easy as a 25-year-old scotch, or a 25-year-old blond on a 25-year-old scotch. Get on it.” The ads were on posters placed in men’s bathrooms at various nightclubs in the city, until one offended patron posted pictures of the ad on Twitter and a few other websites. The hundreds of negative online comments on the photos have prompted the builder to remove the ads, and the company that designed them, Watermark advertising, has since issued a public apology.
Unique property
Tiny isn’t an adjective you normally want to hear when you’re house-hunting. But a little piece of Toronto tourism called the “tiny house,” an approximately 300 square foot home built into what was supposed to be an alleyway, has officially hit the market. The small house, which is squeezed between two normal size homes, is selling for just under $180,000, about $220,000 less than the average home in the city. It became something of a tourist attraction after being featured in many articles and being featured on an episode of Ellen. The century-old home is in the Little Italy district of Toronto and includes three renovated ground-floor rooms, a full bathroom, basement storage, a back patio and two parking spaces.
Beard blunder
The Fraser Health Authority, a government agency that runs health care in part of southern British Columbia, has been forced to apologize after a nurse shaved a Sikh man’s beard in the weeks before his death. A nurse allegedly misunderstood the family and believed she had their consent. The family was reportedly deeply affected by the shave as one of the five articles of faith for baptized male Sikhs is to not cut their hair or beard. Besides for a private apology to the family and a public apology on a local Punjabi radio station, the agency has apparently provided more information to staff concerning spiritual and cultural sensitivity. A similar incident had already occurred another Fraser Health facility in 2008.
World in Brief
Edison strikes back
This past Saturday, at 8:30 p.m., millions of people shut off their lights around the world for Earth Hour, a symbolic event in support of energy conservation. But not everyone was so inclined. A group of smart-ass University of Michigan students called the Students of Objectivism have created “Edison Hour,” an event that encourages people to turn on every lightbulb in the house during Earth Hour. This is the second year the group has been promoting Edison Hour, named after one of the famous inventors of the lightbulb, and they’re largely organized through a Facebook group.
Energy star-iffy
A report released by the General Accounting Office, the U.S government’s watchdog agency, suggests those “Energy Star” appliances might not be all they’re cracked up to be. The GAO took 20 fake products to the Energy Star certification board, which is run by Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency, and got 15 of them certified by the EPA as being energy efficient. One of the certified products was an alarm clock over a foot tall and powered by gasoline. Another was a heater with a duster attached to it, which was passed off as an air purifier.
Iceland sucks more than ever
Iceland, Sudan’s biggest competition in trying to be the least fun place on Earth, recently banned all strip clubs. The cold-hearted legislators of the Nordic country have banned profiting off of any nudity, which also includes the use of topless waitresses as well. The country of 300,000 people is being celebrated as the first country to ban the clubs for feminist, rather than religious reasons. The law will take effect this summer but meanwhile, Iceland has gone bankrupt and is getting ransacked by volcanic eruptions. Divine retribution? We think so.
Obligatory tasteless brief
An 18-year-old in Las Cruces, New Mexico, was mad at his girlfriend, so he decided to deal with it in a mature, calm manner. Just kidding. He decided to defecate in the backseat of her car. Trouble is he managed to somehow pick the wrong car. He smashed a Civic’s window, climbed in, but was caught mid-act by the car’s real owner, reports the Las Cruces Sun-News. A somewhat awkward exchange followed, after which the young man ran away but was caught. He is being indicted on several charges of property damage.
Red hot hand grenades
The Indian military is experimenting with a new form of hand grenade – one made with burning hot chili pepper in them. Bhut jolokia, the hottest pepper in the world, is being engineered to be used in non-deadly grenades, which would in turn be used to disperse crowds. Indian authorities have said it could be used by riot police and counter-insurgency police in the north. Presumably too, you could toss “em over top of tortilla chips and cheese for some deadly instant nachos. Get it? Deadly?