Back-to-school blues for trustee By Susan Legge
Volume 47 No.12
BEACHMETRO.COM
September 4, 2018
THE EFFECTS of slashing Toronto city council nearly in half with the passing of Bill 5 by Premier Ford’s majority government could make it difficult for school trustees to make change, and won’t necessarily save the province money, said Ward 15 Toronto District School Board (TDSB) Trustee Jennifer Story in an interview with Beach Metro News. Story, who took the helm as trustee in 2014, and previously worked with the city as the chief of staff to Ward 19 Councillor Mike Layton, says she currently works with two city councillors in the Toronto—Dan-
forth area: Councillors Janet Davis in Ward 31 and Mary Fragedakis in Ward 29. With the new headcount and ward reductions coming in October, Story says she’ll be working with one less councillor and believes less time and less focus will be spent on student issues. “For example, I’m working on creating safe routes to schools and road safety, and I will only have one councillor to work with on these issues,” she said. “This change will affect parents and students.” Continued on Page 23
Reunion tour brings Degrassi kids back to the Beach Left to right: Three original cast members from the Degrassi Junior High TV series, Joey Jeremiah (Pat Mastroianni), Christine “Spike” Nelson (Amanda Stepto) and Caitlin Ryan (Stacie Mistysyn) answered questions from the sold-out audience at The Fox Theatre on August 25 where episodes filmed at the theatre in the late ’80s, as well as the 1992 made-for-TV series finale, School’s Out, were screened. What are they up to today? Mistysyn is now a fulltime mom to two kids. She delivered the Beach Metro News when it was the Ward 9 News and went to Malvern Collegiate Institute. Mastroianni now runs the Comic-Con division of a talent agency, and Stepto, whose character had the biggest and best (and currently pink) hair no longer acts and is enjoying life in Mississauga. PHOTO: SUSAN LEGGE
Pot sales online this fall and in retail shops in April 2019 By Marjan Asadullah
WITH LOTS of empty stores for lease in and around the Beach community and marijuana becoming legal in Ontario for the first time as early as this fall, the question is: will cannabis stores take over the area? Before making such assumptions, it’s important to hone in on some facts. The Ontario government will legalize cannabis sales on October 17, however, it will only be accessible online through the Ontario Cannabis Store’s mail-order service for now. People can order 30 grams (which is one ounce) of dried recreational cannabis at one time for personal use. People can also purchase legal seeds from the online store to grow up to four plants per residence. Meanwhile, because the legalization of
cannabis was done at a federal level, the municipal levels of government are trying to figure out bylaws and licensing requirements as to how privately owned cannabis shops will allow businesses to function and which level of government will be responsible for inspection and law enforcement. Roderick Elliot, a resident of the Beach for seven years, and senior vice-president of Global Public Affairs, a firm which provides public affairs counsel to a range of clients, is also the founder of cannabisCONNECT which provides advice to the cannabis sector. Elliot says that the biggest misconception about the legalization of cannabis is that it is a free-for-all when, in fact, it is a process that will be rolled out slowly. “The process of legalizing cannabis took consultation from different levels of govern-
ment and as far as any current cannabis stores opened, those stores will be illegal and could face massive fines,” says Elliot.
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