Beach residents/merchants warned to be vigilant after counterfeit bills found locally
Volume 47 No. 23
BEACHMETRO.COM
February 19, 2019
TORONTO POLICE are asking residents to be vigilant after counterfeit bills were seized in the area early this month. On Feb. 1, a local resident reported two Canadian one-hundred dollar bills to police at 55 Division. “We are currently investigating reports of counterfeit bills being passed to businesses in the area and are asking all store employees to be vigilant when accepting
large bills and examine each one thoroughly,” Det. Const. Francis Yung of 55 Division’s Fraud Office said. And, on Feb. 12, Ontario Provincial Police issued a warning after several counterfeit $20 bills were spotted in Leamington. However, these bills were more noticeably counterfeit because of large Chinese lettering printed on each side. Residents are encouraged to
learn how to spot counterfeit currency via The Bank of Canada’s (BOC) website. Most counterfeit bills enter circulation at a retail point of sale. Polymer notes have leadingedge security features that are easy to check and hard to counterfeit, according to the Bank of Canada’s website at www.bankofcanada.ca/banknotes/counterfeitprevention.
Queen Street crossing guard Belyea says ‘au revoir’ By Rushanthi Kesunathan
THE MOST popular attraction at Queen and Elmer isn’t the pizza parlour or nail salon, it’s a man. Toddlers to bus drivers stop to say “Hi,” and ask how he’s doing; kids run up to him for their morning fix of high-fives, and some adults give him spontaneous hugs. Paul Belyea is hard to miss with his whistle and stop sign. But the same people are now saying ‘Congratulations!’, ‘Good luck’, and ‘Goodbye’ to Paul, the crossing guard who is not bidding adieu but instead saying ‘au revoir!’ Most know Paul Belyea by name. For four years, Belyea had become a fixture, if not a part of the landscape to local walkers and drivers in the Kew Gardens area. He started as a crossing-guard on April’s Fools Day and worked his last shift on Valentine’s Day. Belyea now moves on from his crossing-guard duties at the intersection to instead train future crossing guards. It’s an opportunity he is looking forward to, to export lessons he’s learned from kids, families and locals, he said. “I came to be your crossing guard as someone lost in
PHOTO: RUSHANTHI KESUNATHAN
Paul Belyea hands out high fives while working one of his final crossing guard shifts at Queen Street East and Elmer Avenue. A popular figure with students and parents in the neighbourhood, Belyea is moving on from the area to become a crossing guard trainer. life,” Belyea wrote in a letter posted on the Beaches Toronto Facebook Group. “I can never thank you all enough for taking me into your community and treating me with such profound kindness, courtesy, and support. You have made me
become a better person, to care about the well-being of others, to remember things like names, and to give some of the meanest high fives ever.” Belyea addresses the kids, parents and Kew Beach Junior Public School staff in his letter.
Forty-eight-year old Belyea, a Toronto native moved back from Montreal four years ago, which he calls a second home-coming. Belyea grew up in the Kew neighbourhood, and in fact, graduated from the very school he now helps current students
cross to and from. “On my first day on the job, kids were thanking me and I was blown away just at the basic courtesy,” he said. “I’ve realized this is a vital job and I play a vital role in the community.” Parents have learned to
trust Belyea, and it alleviates some of their parental stress from their lives, he said. “A lot of parents have allowed their kids to walk alone to school because they know I’m here and looking out for them. I keep an eye Continued on Page 3
Winter Stations art installations open at Woodbine Beach By Rushanthi Kesunathan
WINTER STATIONS unveiled its temporary public art installations on Family Day, and once again, brought an array of colour to Toronto’s Beach community. Now in its fifth year, three international teams and three Canadian teams transformed Toronto’s lifeguard stations into stimulating pieces of pop-up art. The six in-
stallations dotted along Woodbine Beach will be open to the public until April 1.
On the theme Each year Winter Stations tries to pick a theme that is topical and is conducive to multiple interpretations. Migration, the movement from one region to another and often back again, is this years’ theme.
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Designers were asked to explore all aspects of migration such as the complex social issues surrounding humanity’s shaping of global society, the flight of animals and the exchange of ideas.
According to the designers Above the Wall by Joshua Carel and Adelle York, Boston, USA. Above the Wall positions hu-
mans, physically and symbolically, above a barrier constructed around the lifeguard stand at Woodbine Beach. “We wanted to tangentially address the theme of migration but primarily contest the idea that walls should be used to fortify and delineate boundaries between countries,” Joshua Carel said. “Which is relevant given the conversations happening around the
border wall between Mexico and the States right now.” In addition to creating humanitarian crisis one thing that is left out of the discourse of the border wall is that it impedes species migration patterns, he said. “So if the wall is built along the U.S and Mexican border, about 100 migratory species would be significantly impacted by the wall,” Carel said. Continued on Page 9