Cannabis shop to open on Gerrard By Josh Sherman
Volume 47 No. 4
April 17, 2017
THE PROVINCE has revealed the first four Ontario Cannabis Store locations, and one of them is in eastend Toronto. As per a news release from the LCBO—which will be responsible for overseeing the sale of cannabis products in Ontario—2480 Gerrard St. E. has been selected as Toronto’s inaugural legal marijuana retailer. Other locations are 304 Stone Rd. W. in Guelph, 770 Gardiners Rd. in Kingston, and 570 Harbour Expressway in Thunder Bay. “The identification of additional OCS (Ontario Cannabis Store) store locations is ongo-
ing and more information on store locations will be communicated over the coming months,” said a news release. According to the Toronto Star, Laurie French, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association’s president, said the Toronto District School Board hoped for more distance between the OCS and schools. “My question would be what was their process to decide that location,” French told the Star. At least one local resident was not so concerned with the Ontario Cannabis Store’s arrival to the area. “Honestly it’s no big deal,” said Ian Harvey, who lives near Clonmore Drive and Warden Avenue. “You could pick any area, and you could find a school nearby.”
PHOTO: MAYA FUHR
The Beaches (the band) embarking on first national headline tour Homegrown talent The Beaches, a four-piece rock group with three members hailing from the Beach, won the 2018 Breakthrough Group of the Year at the Juno Awards in March. Now they’re ready to hit the road. Read more on Page 10.
92 bicycle trails and counting By Josh Sherman
DANFORTH VILLAGE resident Dan Roitner is constantly seeking out new trails to cycle along. “Whenever I see a trail, I’m always wondering, Where does that go? And that curiosity has always carried me over the years,” said Roitner, an avid mountain-biking enthusiast. The answer to that question—for more than 90 trails and counting in Ontario, anyways—can be found on Roitner’s website ontariobiketrails. com. Now in its sixth year, the website is a way for Roitner to share his knowledge of the many bike trails that cut across the province. “The focus is off-road… bike
riding,” Roitner explained. Visitors to the website won’t find much in the way of bike lanes, then. The focus is on routes that are around 90 per cent offroad and will take longer than 20 minutes to ride through. Each trail featured on the website includes a review that Roitner has written, which he suggested sets his website apart from other online resources. “You can compare one place with another, and it’s from the same perspective,” he added. Last year, 40,000 cyclists checked out the website, Roitner said, and he hopes to keep increasing his following. “The first few years, it’s very quiet,” said Roitner, who also runs a
sister site that maps cross-country skiing trails. “It’s like a snowball rolling down the hill. In the beginning, it’s a very small ball,” he laughed. Although the website does include popular Toronto bike paths, such as the Martin Goodman Trail, which links the Humber Bay to the Rouge River, Roitner is more interested in showing cyclists trails that are off the beaten path. “They’re looking to find something new that they don’t know about,” he said of the site’s visitors. Since its inception, the website has already undergone three redesigns, and now Roitner has plans for an e-book. “What I wish to do is eventu-
PHOTO: DAN ROITNER
Dan Roitner’s son, Trevor, takes a trip along a bicycle trail.
ally publish an e-book of the reviews, the photos, and some of my own maps,” he said. “The site only makes me a dollar a day, so it’s
not a money-maker by any means right now,” he continued. “Maybe if I publish this book I can generate some revenue.”
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