Two people fled on foot in eastern Ville‑Marie Wednesday afternoon after trashing a Range Rover, crashing into several other vehicles and injuring an unnamed victim. It’s heavily hinted the vehicle had been stolen.
Updates from February, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Antoine Dubuc, charged with dangerous driving causing death and fleeing the scene of a deadly collision, was in court Wednesday over the fatal hit‑and‑run on New Year’s day in which two men were killed. The Global piece focuses mostly on the reactions of friends and family of victim Michael Chintakis.
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Kate
The EMSB has decided to close on April 8, cancelling a ped day in March and moving it to the day of the solar eclipse, which will be happening around the time kids usually get out of school.
Adding Plateau Astro’s Youtube video on the eclipse.
Joey
That’s cool. Presumably we’ll have a snowstorm that day.
Kate
Or, if it’s like last year, an ice storm.
Tim S.
So if I read between the lines of the explanation right, the EMSB is concerned that students will look directly at the sun from the school grounds, and they’ll be sued? This seems like risk aversion of the most extreme level.
Kate
Maybe the teachers are concerned there’s no way they can control the behaviour of all the kids in their care, so they’d rather leave it to families to do so? I suppose it could be seen as an insurance issue, but I would not want to be the person tasked with stopping 30 children from looking up at the sky.
Nicholas
I was in a PSBGM elementary school during the 1994 solar eclipse and our science teacher was going to hold a viewing. He was very knowledgeable, and showed us how to create a pinhole camera, which I did. They also let our parents sign permission slips so we could stay about an hour later so we could see it all. Well, day of, it was suddenly cancelled, for legal reasons, and we would have to stay inside with blinds drawn, and could not leave at our normal time even if we wanted to, because the slips were signed. So I snuck into a staff room to use the phone to call home to get them to call the office and let me leave. And so a small group gathered in the playground at the end of class to use the various gadgets to see (the imprint of) the eclipse. I have little doubt legal reasons are the reason, but at least they’re deciding so in advance.
McGill is holding a viewing event with free glasses available day of (while supplies last).
Kate
That’s a good story, Nicholas. What were they thinking, staying inside with blinds drawn! Reminds me of “All Summer in a Day”.
I already have a pair of eclipse glasses from the astronomy store, even though the odds are we don’t see anything but a darkened cloudy sky.
jeather
I know a lot of parents who planned to just take their kids out early or skip entirely that day, because they wanted to see the eclipse with their children. It seems like a sensible decision, honestly.
MarcG
Eclipses aren’t ever going to go away we need to learn to live with blindness and stop these restrictions.
Tim S.
If parents want to share this occasion with their children, fine. But as someone who was also in high school during the 90s eclipse, to the best of my recollection:
1) the blinds were not closed
2) most people had special sunglasses that were on sale at every dep
3) we looked out the windows for 10 minutes, got bored and went back to our usual classes
4) no one went blind.Mr.Chinaski
Unfortunately there’s a 70% chance that it’s gonna be cloudy in Montreal. Let’s hope for the best, or that there will be an open sky 1-2hours from Montreal (near Sherbrooke)
https://eclipsophile.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2024TSE-CentreCloud-graph-hires-VT-NB-sm.png
Joey
Did Donald Trump not prove that looking at the sun in an eclipse is totally fine?
Kate
That’s how he gets his incomparable skin tone.
Ian
And here I thought it was from getting blasted by farts from all the dictators of the world whose butts he has his nose up.
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Kate
The first REM trains will be starting to circulate on the Deux‑Montagnes branch of the REM on February 24, between St‑Eustache and the future station in Ste‑Dorothée.
The trains will be moving slowly as a test. The Deux‑Montagnes branch is not expected to be in service till the end of the year.
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Kate
A man was injured in a fire in Petite-Patrie early Wednesday, and the arson squad is investigating.
Update Thursday: The man has died but the fire has been ruled accidental.
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Kate
As the city seeks to work out a nightlife policy, they say they want it to be adapted to each borough, but not become Las Vegas.
Blork
A side note: NY Times just ran an article on how GenZ people have given up on late nights and partying. The piece talks about how the big thing among GenZers is getting 9 hours of sleep every night and usually being in bed by 9:30PM, even on weekends. Plus they hardly drink at all. (Anecdotes about going to see live music after work, but literally from 5:30 to 8:30 then home and to bed. Stories about being invited to a dinner party at 8:30 on a Saturday and thinking “OMG that’s so late!” Etc. etc.)
Obviously GenZ is not a monolith, and who knows how much a survey of a selection of young urban New Yorkers and a bunch of TikTokers represents a generation at large, but I find this talk of 24 partying in Montreal to be a bit out of step with current trends.
Kate
They’re facing a harsher and less amenable world than boomers did, or even Gen X. A lot of them will be working 2 jobs to make ends meet, or working while studying to improve their situations. Staying out all night partying will not be so appealing.
DeWolf
I think you’re confusing a piece in the NYT with a piece in the Daily Mail, Blork. The NYT story was about 40-somethings who still want to go out dancing but don’t want to stay up late. The Daily Mail piece was about early-to-bed GenZ kids:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13040585/generation-z-sleep-schedule-early-nine-hours.html
In which case I’d caution that… it’s the Daily Mail. It’s based on a handful of random anecdotes. When I was in university, there was a large percentage of people who went to bed very early and didn’t really go out partying, but there weren’t any breathless news articles describing it as a generational trend.
In any case, there’s clearly enough demand for late-night partying, given that after-hours are still a thing and many bars are still open until 3am. Nobody is forcing any business to stay open late if they don’t want to be, and nobody is being forced to go out. Why shouldn’t regulation be flexible in that regard, instead of imposing a completely arbitrary closing time? Where does the 3am last call even come from, anyway?
Blork
@DeWolf, no it wasn’t that. But indeed it wasn’t the NY Times, it was the Wall Street Journal (I read ’em all, folks). https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/early-sleep-bedtime-6ecd1d67
“The hottest new bedtime for 20-somethings is 9PM”
Oddly, the same person is profiled in both the WSJ and DM pieces, even though the articles have different bylines.
MarcG
New York Post has an article as well and interviews the same person. I would guess that she’s some sort of sleep influencer with a podcast and a book coming out.
Blork
OMG. “Sleep influencer.” The photo of her (same photo in both WSJ and DM, provided by her) definitely have that “Hi! I’m an influencer!” vibe, which makes me want to never see or hear from her again. (Same reaction for all “influencers!” I see.) We are doomed.
steph
In this economy, they simply can’t afford to go out.
walkerp
Oh please, young people will party no matter what. The economy will adjust.
CE
It’s anecdotal but I’ve met a disproportionate number of people in their 20s who are, frankly, boring. They don’t really do anything. One exception was a guy (early 20s) I worked with for a little while who is really into live music. He told me he almost always goes to shows by himself because he can’t get his friends out of the house and when he gets there, he feels like the youngest person in the building. I’ve noticed this too when I go out, everyone seems to be around my age (mid 30s).
I also feel like the loss of unofficial party spaces have taken their toll. I remember many nights in the 2000s and early 2010s where late at night, we’d go to a semi-occupied commercial building in places like Griffintown or Villeray and party all night. Drinks (and drugs) were cheap and you could even bring your own which helped save a lot of money. Almost every single one of those buildings I remember going to have been converted into condos or office buildings, or torn down. You’d walk on Jean-Talon near the underpass to Parc-Ex late at night and there would be lots of young people around. Now, it’s empty.
CE
And yes, I’m well aware that people who grew up in the 80s and 90s thought my generation was boring because we spent too much time chatting on the internet and downloading movies. Probably as boring as people who grew up in the 60s and 70s thought those people were for spending too much time watching their cable TV and VCRs, and so on and so on.
Joey
A take I appreciated – when ‘we’ were young adults (~2000), home high-speed internet was spotty and game consoles weren’t quite so ubiquitous. If you wanted to play video games with your friends, you all went to one person’s house and hung out, taking turns or just watching. Now everybody’s got high-speed internet and gaming systems so there’s no need to share a physical space. The technology has improved to a point where we are constantly ‘connected’ to our peers (or family, or co-workers) without any obligation to be actually share geographical space with them. The mass adoption of VR or spatial computing headsets seems, from this lens, inevitable.
Kate
CE, I’m not of a defined generation – post boomer, but not quite Gen X. I remember working with people older than me who made fun of me because I hadn’t done any of the hippie things – never hitchhiked, never dropped acid. Clearly my generation was too bourgeois.
I don’t envy today’s kids. What I remember with pleasure was being able to live in the city without constant worry about the cost of living – it’s amazing the difference that made. People could afford reasonable places to live, and artists and musicians could afford places to work, too. It created a bohemian vibe that gave the city its reputation as a creative hotbed. Feels like a distant memory now.
Ian
Funny thing about being a young person in the 80s and 90s here in Montreal, nobody I knew had any money. Sure there were the fabled rich kids but most of us had really sketchy under the table jobs. The lucky ones worked for tips. Sure rent was cheap but if you’re only making 50 bucks cash under the table per shift it has to be. I remember lineups for dishwasher jobs.
And yet somehow sex, drugs, and beats you could move to were there for the having.
I teach CEGEP so I see al lot of 18-22 year olds. The kids today have a different vibe in part becasue they can keep in touch online and have lots of online stuff they like to do socially, but I assure you, even for them, sex, drugs, and beats you can move to are there for the having. And they take as much advantage of their availability as we did “back in the day”.
Their tattoos & piercings are a lot better than ours were in the 80s though.
Blork
@Kate: but you ARE of a defined generation: Generation Jones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones
Kate
I hadn’t run into that, Blork. Thanks.
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Kate
Daniel Renaud has a short but telling interview with police chief Fady Dagher about the state of organized crime in Montreal. It’s impossible to tell whether the cops really are getting an upper hand on armed violence, or whether the underworld is in disarray and Dagher is simply good at spin.
Ephraim 09:21 on 2024-02-15 Permalink
Well, the legitimate owner wouldn’t have much of a reason to run… the plate would give away who he was.
JP 10:50 on 2024-02-15 Permalink
In the context of another story, someone pointed out that the legitimate owner could run and claim (or try to claim) someone else did it….
In either scenario, it seems like a nonsensical thing to do.
Blork 11:03 on 2024-02-15 Permalink
“Nonsensical” doesn’t keep it from happening. People panic. People do stupid things in the heat of the moment. (People also do stupid things when they have much time and calmness to consider their options…)
JP 12:24 on 2024-02-15 Permalink
@Blork. Totally agree.