Updates from July, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 17:11 on 2020-07-23 Permalink | Reply  

    The recent news about Donald Trump “acing” the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test (pdf) has brought the city’s name into a kind of unearned prominence in world news. The test, devised here by Dr Ziad Nasreddine, is designed to reveal various cognitive deficits quickly.

    This reminded me of two other things which crop up but don’t have a lot to do with life here:

    The Montreal Protocol, the most successful international agreement to date on an environmental issue – any issue at all, really – has meant that substances responsible for ozone depletion have been phased out. A not displeasing thing to have the city’s name attached to. (Wikipedia’s disambiguation page reminds me that there are other pacts associated with the city, including another protocol meant to protect civil aviation from unlawful acts.)

    And then there’s Montreal steak seasoning. People who know nothing else about the city turn out to know about this. Wikipedia says it includes garlic, coriander, black pepper, cayenne pepper, dill seed and salt.

    Any other well-known things named for the city in this way?

     

    • j 17:17 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      There’s a Montreal melon

    • Kate 17:19 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      There was. The melon is a whole saga, and I’ve yet to see the soi-disant revived version for sale, or tasted one.

    • MarcG 17:34 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Not well-known at all, but some people in my homebrew beer club who come from abroad have dubbed a “Montreal short pour” for the ungenerous amounts bartenders here put into glassware.

    • Matthew H 17:39 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Wikipedia search helpfully suggests the Montreal Screwjob, “an infamous and controversial unscripted professional wrestling incident.”

    • ProposMontreal-Martin 17:50 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      I’m not a fan of wrestling, but I was going to say like Matthew, the Montreal Screwjob.
      You also have the Montreal procedure, developed in the 50’s by Dr. Wilder Penfield. it is a method of surgery involves keeping the patient awake to pinpoint the source of epilepsy.

    • Charles Lanteigne 17:52 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Montreal bagels, of course—as opposed to New York style.

    • Blork 17:58 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Nodding at MarcG’s “Montreal short pour.” You don’t see that so much at pubs but restaurants are notorious for it.

    • Ian 17:59 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Indeed. Also worth noting, “Montreal smoked meat” is a thing, mostly in the ROC as in the US it tends toward pastrami and in the UK, corned beef.

    • Alex 19:59 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Regarding the short pour, in the UK and Europe if you get shorted on your pint you are well within your rights to ask for a top up. If you went to the gas station and paid for a litre of gas and you got 800ml I am sure the law would be on your side, it should be the same for beer I would have thought

    • Kevin 20:01 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      J
      I have tried and failed to grow that.

    • Blork 21:21 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      @Alex, any decent pub in Montreal will abide by that, but restaurants are a whole different animal. The idea of a fair pour is very instilled in pub culture, but most restaurants — and people who work at restaurants — just have no clue. So if you complain, you are immediately pegged as a “problem client” such as someone who complains that they didn’t get enough fries with their dinner or people who send the plate back for completely stupid reasons.

    • CE 22:24 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      I’ve heard (but have not been able to confirm with a quick Google search) that the strain of marijuana called M-39 is named for having been developed in Montreal (M) and for taking only 39 days to flower (39). It’s universally not considered to be very good but it’s always cheap.

    • mare 00:59 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      We’re also famous for the band “Of Montreal”.

      (Several of my international friends have asked if I knew them; they’re from Athens, Georgia.)

    • ant6n 04:40 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Apprarently theres the Alfa Romeo Montreal, a Sports car whose prototype was exposed at Expo 67, where the public started calling it “the Montreal”.

    • Chris 09:32 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      I’ve grown Montreal Melon every year since I finally got seed, maybe 5 years ago. Alas between the squirrels and powdery mildew, I’ve only ever got 2 fruits, and neither was fully developed. Maybe this year.

    • Kate 09:38 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Some good ones here! I’m discounting bagels and smoked meat, since they really are a thing we legitimately do. But the Screwjob, which is seriously a thing even though not perpetrated by a Montrealer, the Alfa Romeo model which wasn’t designed or built here, and the band Of Montreal, which isn’t from here, are on this list, as “things which make the city known even though not connected in any material way.”

    • DCMontreal 11:00 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Good plug on CJAD today! Bravo. I’m not sure if this counts as a ‘famous’ thing, but there was the ‘Alfa Romeo Montreal’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_Romeo_Montreal

    • Kate 11:26 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Plug on CJAD?

    • Dominic 12:21 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      More of a pop-culture reference, but the episode of The Simpsons where Marge drinks her most international coffee: Montreal Morn.

    • Kate 12:35 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Can someone explain the short pour? My experience with upscale restaurants, especially ones with tasting menus and paired wines – which isn’t extensive – suggests that for the paired wine you often get no more than about 1/3 glass. Basically just a slightly extended splash. It never crossed my mind that it would be reasonable to ask for a bit more.

      But do restaurants normally list formal pints and so on for beer, the way bars do?

    • Meezly 13:39 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      I thought the “short pour” phenomena is generally a Canadian thing, our bars being more stingy compared to the more generous pours of American counterparts. Likely due to many, if not all, provinces having more regulated taxes and higher duties on alcohol.

    • Kevin 13:51 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      The short pour applies to beer, not wine.
      A pint is 20 oz. An American pint is 16 oz. (570 ml vs. 470 ml.)
      Servers in Montreal will hand you a glass that holds slightly more than a bottle of beer (330 ml) and declare it a pint.

      I’ve had staff tell me “our pints are 12 oz.” which makes about as much sense as a florist giving me ten flowers and calling it a dozen.

      These are the establishments I don’t return to.

    • Matthew H 14:02 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Apparently there’s also the “Montreal effect”, which comes up in discussions about independence referendums in Scotland and Catalonia.

    • dwgs 15:25 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      “Montreal typical” has become a minor meme in NHL fan circles after an opposing coach felt his team was jobbed by the ref favouring the hometown boys.

    • CE 15:32 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      The Montreal Process, also known by its catchy official name “Montreal Process Working Group on Criteria and Indicators for the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Temperate and Boreal Forests”

      According to Wikipedia, hotdogs, as served in Montreal, are called Montreal hot dogs

    • Kate 15:56 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      There even used to be a Wikipedia page about Montreal shish taouk, but it’s gone away. (Short version: what everyone else calls a chicken shawarma, we call a shish taouk, because of a decision or mistake made by the founder of Basha’s. Properly, a shish taouk is a brochette of pieces of chicken, not chicken sliced off a rotating spit.)

    • ant6n 17:32 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Interesting! I always thought that in Berlin they somehow got it the wrong way around, because here the focus is more on Doners by Turkish people, so whoever does shawarma must be doing it wrong.

    • Dhomas 19:04 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      The article still exists on French Wikipedia:
      https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shish_taouk

    • David tighe 21:41 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      I had a Honda in 1989 which was Montreal blue

    • David tighe 21:48 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      I should add, to add a bit of stupifying boredom to the subject that it was in Geneva and it was a kind of frosty cold blue

    • Kate 14:12 on 2020-09-05 Permalink

      Came back later to add, for future listing purposes, the Dutch band Miss Montreal, which has occasionally turned up in my searches.

  • Kate 14:06 on 2020-07-23 Permalink | Reply  

    I am struck by two federal-level stories right now, so if you think this blog should not concern itself with these, you can look away now.

    It’s significant that the Safe Third Country Agreement that has allowed Canada to turn refugee claimants back to the United States has been ruled unconstitutional by the Federal Court because it violates our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s a ruling that makes a pointed criticism of how the U.S. has been handling refugees. Canada has withdrawn its trust.

    I wasn’t aware of the area of jurisdiction of the Federal Court so had to look that up.

    Incidentally, I noticed the local CBC news announcer saying “illegal refugees” Wednesday and texted them to point out that it is not illegal for anyone to request refuge. Thursday morning they were at least saying “irregular refugees” when discussing e.g. crossings at Roxham Road.

    The other federal story is the hot mess involving WE Charity, Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau. Without being an uncritical supporter of the federal Liberal party, I think it’s fair to say that in general I find their approach to government massively preferable to the Tories’. I mean, think of how much harder life would have been here had Covid-19 arrived during the Harper era.

    But the Liberals get sloppy. The sponsorship scandal arguably let the whole country in for the nine interminable years of the Harper era. Now the WE Charity mess risks letting something similar happen, and during a minority government too. How smug can they be to assume nobody will ask questions about things like this? How stupid do they think we are?

     

    • Ian 21:03 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      “How stupid do they think we are?”

      In my experience asking this question just makes us all feel sad.

      It’s not that they think we are stupid, it’s that they think that what we think doesn’t matter, and the part that makes us sad is that they usually turn out to be right.

    • Kate 22:57 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      I don’t think anyone has written a song called Roxham Road yet. Where’s Stan Rogers when you need him?

    • david223 02:25 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Safe Third Country will be reinstated or the feds will drop it but this court decision won’t stand – it’s a sovereign (ie. parliamentary) decision on border control, and it’s a treaty obligation. Very hard to imagine that (if it gets there) the Supreme Court would ever say that (1) the parliament can’t make that sort of law or (2) that such treaties can be abrogated by a court like that. “Hey, we’ve decided the Charter gives Canadians stronger labor protections than we read in this free trade agreement, so the treaty agreement is nul and void.” Not happening. Gets at the crazy stare decisis problem in this country though as the judges get increasingly goofy (“if you can’t do, judge”).

      On the nomenclature, people need to get it straight: asylees are the people who show up and ask to get in; refugees are people who go the whole UNCHR process and get vacuumed up according to protocols and annual numbers. There’s no limit on asylees, but there is on refugees.

      On the question of legality – it’s definitely illegal to lie to get into Canada, like straight up. In the same way that if you try to travel to France to, say, move there and illegally start working on a tourist visa, you’re instantly deportable. Asylum must be based one of a few (increasingly expansive) but clearly delimited grounds. Once you claim asylum, you get special protections (including free housing, food and money) until they’ve adjudicated your claim. This was a great policy in the old days: pre-internet, there were relatively few asylees, they were almost all worthy, and the courts system decided the cases quickly and cleanly. These days, different story, as even Trudeau has been forced to admit.

    • Chris 09:36 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      >texted them to point out that it is not illegal for anyone to request refuge

      Quite right. But it *is* illegal to cross the border anywhere but an official border crossing.

      >But the Liberals get sloppy

      Interesting choice of words. Would you say merely “sloppy” if it was the Tories? I think corrupt is a better word frankly.

    • Joey 10:00 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      @Chris but the word “illegal” was used to alter the word “refugee” – does *illegally* crossing the border make a person an *illegal* refugee? Or does it make them a *leigitmate* refugee who contravened the law? It’s perhaps a subtle difference but a significant one, and Kate was right to point out to the CBC reporter/producer that they had confounded the two notions.

    • Chris 10:08 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Joey, I’m not disputing the gist of that. As I said, Kate was “quite right”. However, some people argue the word ‘illegal’ should never be associated with them at all, and I can’t agree there. Their border crossing is an illegal act.

    • Kate 10:17 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Chris, I said “sloppy” and I mean sloppy.

      Realistically, every government is making deals all the time at various levels and contexts. Practical governing is always going to be a compromise with rectitude: if every rule were followed, every i dotted and every t crossed, progress would be so slow on every front that the public would be endlessly frustrated.

      Government is not done hands-off impersonally between strangers, it’s always going to be a matter of having someone’s ear, tipping the wink to an old friend or a brother-in-law, quid pro quo in some means not written down. It’s human nature. It’s how business works and it’s how any large-scale human endeavour works. Is that corruption? Do it too openly and too excessively, yes. Do it circumspectly and with common sense, it’s simply how things get done.

      Different parties have different styles in this as in other matters. The problem with the Liberals is specifically that they get sloppy about the scale of their deal-making, and don’t stop to think about how these things look if revealed, or even partly revealed, to their critics, and to the public.

      The Liberals get sloppy. They make deals, they don’t even tell the boss, they forget their responsibility not to let the country slide too far to the right. That’s what’s making me mad about this scenario. Justin Trudeau knows the wolves are after him, he should have been keeping a sharp eye on this kind of thing developing on his watch, but he hasn’t been as smart about it as e.g. his father would’ve been.

      We’ll probably have a Conservative government after the next general election. And that, my friends, is going to suck.

    • DeWolf 12:00 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      I’m astonished a CBC reporter would be saying something as plainly wrong as “illegal refugees” or “irregular refugees.” The terminology here is very clear: when you claim asylum you are an asylum seeker; when you are granted asylum you become a refugee. I guess they missed that lesson in journalism school.

    • Kate 16:36 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      DeWolf, it’s summer, CBC’s regulars are mostly on vacation. There have been some egregious switching errors, dead air and so on, besides the occasionally amateur-sounding news reading. Happens every year.

    • Chris 19:09 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Kate: thanks for clarifying your view. You’re more generous to them than me. But anyway, I guess sloppy and corrupt aren’t really mutually exclusive either. 🙂

      DeWolf, sure, but one might want to make the distinction between those that claim asylum properly by presenting themselves at a border crossing, and those that claim asylum after illegally crossing the border. It’s not clear to me how to do that in the fewest words possible, maybe “asylum seeker that crossed illegally” is as short as it can get. Perhaps we need a catchy acronym.

  • Kate 12:40 on 2020-07-23 Permalink | Reply  

    François Cardinal reports on Projet’s campaign promise of a bain portuaire for the Old Port, and how it has been put off indefinitely. It turned out to be more complicated (and thus more expensive) than expected.

    Right now, it seems to me, it would make the most sense for city hall to review all its plans and prioritize them in order, considering the economic fallout of the pandemic and the possibility we will be living with social distancing requirements for some time. It shouldn’t be seen as a weakness for certain projects to be put on hold.

     

    • Joey 13:22 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Just to be clear, the decision to shelve (permanently, sounds like) this floating pool idea has nothing to do with COVID-19. Cardinal makes clear that the project never stood a chance – too complicated, too expensive, something that never should have been promised. I’m surprised he didn’t make the link to the Jeanne-Mance park softball field, another “sports and leisure” broken promise from this administration.

    • Kate 13:37 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      You are correct, but I was thinking aloud about how I think city hall should proceed in general.

    • Mr.Chinaski 15:07 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Anybody who’s ever looked at the river current near the Old Port knows this was impossible. Look, this is not Copenhagen here, you find drowned people (even if they are mostly suicides) every year near the piers.

    • j2 07:37 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      I was making the same remark that the city should be re-evaluating funding, with my partner about a massive roof that has been put on a bocce/pétanques court in Saint Raymond for a group of people for whom socializing is high risk until a vaccine is developed. It could be two or more years until it can be used.

    • dwgs 08:39 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      When I first heard about the roof on the bocce court I thought it was a bit frivolous but I know the courts are quite the social scene for some longtime older residents so sure, go ahead. When I saw what they built… holy crap, you could park a passenger jet under that thing.

    • Benoit 09:45 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Although less spectacular, they should make the Verdun beach bigger instead. It’s very popular and crowded already, and its location is more convenient, close to the metro. And it would probably be much less costly and possibly benefit more people.

    • Kate 10:36 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      dwgs, I don’t know whether Montreal is unusual in having a problem with modest projects getting way out of hand on the drawing board, but I’ve seen it happen often. One example is the Théâtre de la Verdure: during the Coderre era they decided it needed to be fixed up, but so many nifty high-tech things were added to the plans, the whole thing got bigger and more unwieldy and the price tag larger and larger, and thankfully that version was cancelled. Even the revised version is a lot fancier than what was originally there, but that’s the difference between what people in the 20th century thought was sufficient, and what we find necessary in the 21st.

      Another example I recall was rebuilding the swimming pool in Sir-George-Étienne-Cartier square. I can’t find a link, but the city set out to redo the pool, but then they started adding features to the adjoining building – meeting rooms, community stuff, more and more things each of which probably had its proponents and its justification. What was needed was showers, changing rooms and lockers. This is the key: each added thing has some very good reason to be there, but accepting them all makes the whole project top-heavy and unaffordable.

      The real classic example here, ongoing, is the botanical garden. Every year or two, some building considered necessary or at least deserving and worthwhile is added. But if you look at the map you realize the garden is not infinite. Every construction eats up more of the available green space.

    • Kate 10:40 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Benoit, is it geographically feasible to enlarge that beach? I haven’t been to see it, so I don’t know. Might there be limits to what they can do, based on the river currents and the natural shape of the shore?

      Also, note that they’re also building a beach out east in Promenade Bellerive.

    • Kevin 12:15 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      @j2 @dwgs
      My dad’s into lawn bowling and the clubs are hyper-strict about distancing. This year they have referees whose only job is to make sure players maintain distance.

      But now I want to see this roof.

    • dwgs 15:43 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      It’s in the space behind Momesso’s and the old elementary school where they now have adult ed classes. I’ll snap a pic next time I pass.

    • Kate 16:38 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      I taught a module at the Shadd a couple of years ago. Coffee from Momesso’s was the best part of it.

      The space you mention is officially Parc Georges-Saint-Pierre.

    • Benoit 00:09 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

      Kate, yes, the Verdun beach can be extended, the plans include a “phase 2” which hasn’t been built yet.

      People already swim pretty much everywhere in the river from École Secondaire Monseigneur Richard all the way to the Lachine rapids. The 2 docks (Quai-de-la-tortue and Natatorium) are especially popular for a quick dip in the river. So if the city wanted to, they could build multiple beaches, really; there’s plenty of potential sites.

  • Kate 11:22 on 2020-07-23 Permalink | Reply  

    There can be fines of up to $6000 for people refusing to wear a mask on public transit.

    Global reports on a woman who really cannot wear a mask because she has trigeminal neuralgia. (My mother had this condition for a time, and it really is hell. You can’t let anything touch your face without risking terrible nerve pain, yet it’s totally invisible to observers.) This woman is running into difficulties because there have been so many people falsely claiming they can’t wear a mask because they have health conditions, possibly waving bogus documents, that people in stores simply don’t believe her.

    Some graduates of Loyola High School are calling out a teacher at that school who has been posting a lot of anti-mask propaganda and related conspiracy theories. Do students “look up to professors and teachers” though? I seem to recall thinking our high school teachers were mostly pretty strange folks – yes, they had some power over us, some we liked more than others, but many openly had quirks and idées fixes and were hardly role models. Maybe things have changed.

     

    • jeather 13:22 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      I don’t know the laws here, but in the US it’s legal to say that people who can’t wear masks have to get (free) curbside pickup/delivery instead of going into the grocery store. I am not in any way saying she is lying about her disability, but the process of accommodating it doesn’t necessarily involve “ok just go wherever without a mask”.

    • Dhomas 15:20 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      I went to Loyola and I know this teacher. This teacher is quite liked by his students. He had a lot of ideas that were outside of the mainstream (think things like Eastern medicine or mysticism), and would speak so confidently about them that he was quite convincing. This was one of the reasons he was so popular. He is dangerous as he is well educated and an effective communicator, and he knows how to play semantics quite well. For example, in a Facebook post, when someone would tell him that masks are important, he would respond with something like “masks do very little to protect the wearer”. This is not false, but it sidesteps the point: wearing masks protects others FROM the wearer, so if enough people wear them we protect a lot of people, just like herd immunity with vaccines (which he is also against). His response to the report does something similar: one of the interviewees says that he is *followed* by many of his students, to which he responds “I am not friends with any current students”. Again, this is not a complete answer, and I think he knows it. His students can follow him on Facebook and see his public posts (all his anti-mask stuff was posted publicly) without being his Facebook friend.
      A little more context I can add is that the school was contacted by alumni on this topic, and they received no response for nearly two weeks. So, some of them went to the media with the story, at which point the school responded the very same day.
      This guy was fun in high school with his quirky theories and alternative literature, but he seems to have gone full QAnon Trumper at this point.

    • Jack 17:37 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      At least he’s not Opus Dei….that would be mortifying.

    • MtlWeb 18:56 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Wow. Both my sons went to Loyola and one had and adored this teacher. He did have a different approach to connecting with students and it was obviously effective as many students enjoyed his classes. Wife (chaperone) and son went on his class’ European trip one spring and she can remember him commenting about the vaccine directives from public health..nothing sinister but remarks in jest.

    • Blork 21:30 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      This is a very different time and place from where I went to school. Back there/then, we did not look up to teachers, nor for the most part parents, priests, or anyone over 25 really. They were all “the man” and were (in our eyes) necessarily corrupt, authoritarian, boring, full of hang-ups, etc. Kids now seem to be the polar opposite, which is nice in many ways (i.e., less stupid rebellion for its own sake, able to communicate across generations, etc.) but almost too far in a lot of cases. IMO kids should respect their elders and learn from them, etc., but not necessarily revere them.

    • Kate 00:34 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Jack, we had one teacher at my high school who was Opus Dei, and he was a piece of work.

  • Kate 11:04 on 2020-07-23 Permalink | Reply  

    La Presse’s Mario Girard starts out here with a reasonable update on the progress of the reconstruction of the Théâtre de la Verdure on the western edge of Lafontaine Park, but later drifts off into a snipe at Mayor Plante about parking.

    Parking is never going to go away as an issue. There’s also a story Thursday about people hating a new temporary bike path in NDG because it abolishes some parking spaces.

     

    • Ian 11:09 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      On the subject of temporary street restructuring I see that in Mile End Pm decided to make Saint-Viateur a “shared street”, kind of a shame considering how much that might have helped Bernard – Saint V already has pretty active street life. I wonder if the local business lobby played a role in that – there is definitely a lot more money on Saint V. Though to be fair Bernard does have several bus routes so that probably played a role in the decision, too.

    • Kate 11:51 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      There is a bus that goes along St-Viateur but it’s such an obscure and sparse route that you can spend considerable time along there and never see it.

    • Ian 18:26 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      The Casgrain bus, right… I noticed today that much of Fairmount is being turned into a “shared” street as well, I haven’t been up to Bernard for a couple of days, it might be happening there too, now. I’ve noticed that in Mile End we have stopped getting any kind of notification for these street changes, construction, or pretty much anything – they just go ahead and do it. I guess PM assumes we will be attending council meetings or visiting their website or something. To be fair it’s no real skin off my back since apparently they aren’t asking for public consensus, so we’ll find out when it happens and that’s that, but it feels like not that long ago we used to get warnings from the borough when there was even a sidewalk repair in the neighbourhood. It’s all become rather excitingly random. Oh look, Maguire is one way now. Huzzah!

    • j2 07:29 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      Re: ndg bike path, that plan is to put it right in front of (at least one) primary school, which would imply the kids need to cross a lane of cycling traffic to get to the school. So for four hours a day (because covid means more buses staggered because of social distancing) the lanes will be either unusable during rush hours or young kids will be dodging cyclists.
      And if it’s lanes the buses will be occupying the east bound car lane.

      The fixation on parking is odd and the wrong point.

    • DeWolf 12:18 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      I can only assume that Bernard was left out because it has a lot more car and bus traffic than St-Viateur and Fairmount. But the borough did note that businesses along there have been given special permission to occupy the parking spaces in front. L’Gros Luxe has already put out tables (which they haven’t had permission to do since they opened). Nonya has occupied the sidewalks out front with tables which looks very nice.

      The shared street designation is a bit of a technicality since it doesn’t restrict access, it just makes it legal to have picnic tables or restaurant seating in the parking spots without one of those bulky wood terrasse structures. Pedestrians theoretically have priority but I doubt anybody is going to be walking down the middle of the street when there are still plenty of cars around.

    • Kate 13:28 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

      As I recall, DeWolf, the guy running the Bernard branch of L’Gros Luxe fought hard for a terrasse permit and never got one, till now. It’s an ill wind, as they say.

      I’ve never eaten in a L’Gros Luxe and always had the impression it was a tolerable place for when you had a group of diverse friends who couldn’t otherwise agree on a place to have brunch, but maybe it’s better than that?

  • Kate 09:39 on 2020-07-23 Permalink | Reply  

    Est Media ponders how the Espace pour la vie has ordained vegetarian menus for the snack bars at the botanical garden, the Planetarium and the Biodome. The argument that “tourists won’t like it” doesn’t have much force this season, but apparently it’s still a thing.

    How can this even be an issue? How childish can people be? It’s perfectly logical if you’re a “space for life” that your offerings should be vegetarian. It isn’t going to kill anyone to eat a veggie burger for once, or, if they’re truly convinced they need to eat some dead animal at every meal, to wait till they leave the site. And I say this as a non-vegetarian myself.

     

    • MarcG 09:54 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      A family member of mine was disappointed when they couldn’t get a generic corporate beer at a tourist place in Vermont – all they had was their “weird craft beers”.

    • Myles 10:26 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      In my experience, people are so stubbornly resistant to any sort of change in their habits that some even have trouble seeing me eating vegetarian and minding my own business. The very sight is annoying to them.

    • Ian 10:44 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      I’m more concerned that the snack bar offerings at the Biodome are second rate quality and grossly overpriced… I already got the vegetarian offerings because I don’t trust that the meat complies with standards of hygiene and freshness.

    • Ephraim 10:46 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      @Myles – It’s called the Technological Adoption Cycle and we are living it, with the masks. You go from early adopters to the last two groups, the late majority and finally the laggards (the other term for laggards are phobics). And basically people want to hold on to the old and not change, they feel comfortable and you are pushing them out of their comfort zone. The laggards are very happy with their VCRs, flip phones, etc.

      @Ian – Do you think they have a real kitchen or are they just getting it all frozen from a vendor? You know, the test of freshness at a restaurant… if it says “no substitutions” it all came from a commercial kitchen and they are just rewarming it.

    • Ian 10:48 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      It depends, there is the snackbar by the ticket counter or way in the back there is a cafeteria that isn’t always open. In both cases the prices are through the roof, and that kind of trying-to-be-fancy-but-not-that-good you often get from catering at corporate events.

    • EmilyG 11:12 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Yeah. People who aren’t vegetarian can still eat vegetarian food.

    • Alex 11:24 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Storm in a teacup…

    • JP 11:58 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      I certainly don’t mind an all-vegetarian menu. That said, I do sometimes choose, for example, a chicken burger instead of a veggie burger, because of my digestive issues and the fact that a chicken burger is easier for me to handle from that perspective. Nevertheless, I totally get that they can’t cater to every possible sensitivity or allergy.

    • Ian 12:15 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Well if you’re really in an utter panic because you can’t get meat at the Biodome or Planetarium there’s always the Star Cité theatre by the metro, I am sure they have some kind of greasy horrorshow you can shovel down your gullet if that’s the only thing that will do. If you’re at the Botanical Garden there’s even a Belle Province a block or two away from the Sherbrooke & Pie IX gate

    • JP 12:35 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      If it’s just me, I also just sneak in snacks. My justification at the movies, for example, is there really are no healthy offerings.

    • dwgs 13:02 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Fart in a windstorm…

    • Kate 13:09 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      OK, it’s not the most exciting news, but I have to work with what I find on any given day, and I like to see what the smaller independent news sources are looking at from time to time.

    • Michael Black 13:25 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      But it’s not unlike the “mask problem”. Those people simply don’t want masks (and some may object because there’s a rule) but they bring up side issues, like they are hard to breath.

      I suspect very few people are outraged that they can’t get meat, but since there’s now a policy, they object. It’s the policy, not the lack of meat.

      In 1984 I was at Canada’s Wonderland for.much of the day. They checked bags going in, not outside food among other things. But I looked at the menu and there was nothing without meat. Well there must have been French fries, but no alternative to burgers or hot dogs. That’s the reverse, except it meant I could get nothing, rather than there wasn’t what I wanted.

    • Ian 18:51 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      Well there’s always poutine but it’s not vegan.

      One thing about La Ronde (since you mention Canada’s Wonderland) that I like is that the food offerings are actually pretty good. There are a couple of Subways so if you want a vegetarian sandwich or a salad you can get one, there are some fancier places, there are some places that are halal… you can also get the crappy pizza/poutine/pogo stuff if that’s what you want.

      The Biodome/ Botanical Garden complex has pretty crap food and always has, vegetarian or not. It’s always felt like a bit of a tourist trap to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Botanical Gardens, but I remember when they were free – and the Biodome is basically a second-rate zoo you can get to on the metro.

    • MarcG 19:39 on 2020-07-23 Permalink

      “The BIodome: A second-rate zoo you can get to on the Metro”. This is a billboard I would not want to see in flames.

  • Kate 09:21 on 2020-07-23 Permalink | Reply  

    A six-year-old girl was stabbed in a Longue-Pointe apartment overnight, and a woman is being questioned. The girl is in critical condition but the woman was not seriously hurt.

    Update: CBC radio news just reported the girl has died and it’s the 11th homicide of the year.

     

    c
    Compose new post
    j
    Next post/Next comment
    k
    Previous post/Previous comment
    r
    Reply
    e
    Edit
    o
    Show/Hide comments
    t
    Go to top
    l
    Go to login
    h
    Show/Hide help
    shift + esc
    Cancel