An open letter to Mayor John Tory
Our relationship goes back a way John, but in a nutshell I can thank you for severing my ties with Rogers after once upon a time receiving a form letter from you in response to my letter addressed to Ted. I never thought of it as your idea, as such, I'm one of many Torontonians who have supported you in every one of your runs for public office. Truth is you are in the place where I've always felt you could affect the most change.I understand that your job sucks in a way. There is no way to tackle all we need tackled, there are no budgets to support all that needs money, there is no way to please almost 3 million electoral residents either. But I keep hearing how much you love your job. I admire you for that.
Understand this, I fully support that these operations were illegally operating, flaunting themselves if you will. My issue is not about their legality or proximity to schools as I heard you mention. My issue is the waste of time and resources spent in fighting this battle.
I, like so many, spend a couple of hours each day in my car, slogging back and forth to my job in another part of the city. Every day on the QEW, Gardiner, DVP, 401 or any other artery, street or lane, I am cut off or made to make a move in my vehicle in order to avoid one of the thousands of texting drivers.
I shop in a number of neighborhoods where it's hard not to notice the prevelance of grey plastic bags with cartons of smokes in them, rarely brands we associate with legal tax paid cigarettes.
Recently I have been appalled at the number of vehicular accidents on our roads involving drunk drivers (in broad daylight half the time), a crime that I honestly believed would go away like the Mumps, but lately has been revived to magnanimous heights.
The city is doing a pathetic job of caring for its Hard drug users, 16 detox beds in the entire city John, 16 - 3 million residents, 16 beds?
Finally John, there are fewer days where my local news isn't kicking off the 6 O'clock news with another story of a shooting in our fair city. That 680 News is reporting on a cat in Riverdale being the latest victim of gun violence after being shot inside it's own home by someone shooting through the house's front door almost gave me pause for laughter, but it didn't.
Again, I support that these Pot operations are illegal. All but the detox beds that I mentioned above are illegal as well and quite honestly far more dangerous to the public's well being than an illegal pot dispensery. If I thought for one moment that your support of this was because you were told that busting the dispenseries would remove guns from the street, rid us of drunk drivers, stop people from texting while driving or prevent one opiate addict from going into withdrawal, I'd bow and call you a genius. But right now, I am not seeing it this way, I'm seeing you and the police chief using low lying fruit to appear as a united force in the battle on "drugs".
The war on drugs is far greater than a pot store on Kennedy Road John, the manufacturing, importing and distribution of Crystal Meth, date rape drugs, HGH, Cocaine, Heroin and many others are the problem John, Hell's Angels and the other undergrounds control that trade, add human trafficking for a laugh and you've got the idea. Pot? Pot is as available as just about anything, and it's not coming from these groups, it's coming from Canada Post and FedEx.
Again I get its illegal, but dear God John, we all know we are moving away from that illegality and instead of being Toronto the Staid, maybe we should look at Vancouver, a city dealing with these dispenseries far longer that the Six. Their response? Let them operate and keep a close eye on their businesses, explain that under 21 clients are not allowed and failure to comply will shut them down, threatening them actually works and now the city is embracing and licensing them. John I implore you as a human, a politician and a friend, stop wasting our resources on this "victim-less" crime and implore the Chief to explore the more serious problems this city is facing, I suspect they are far harder to solve, but that's why we hired him into his role isn't it?
posted by G.M. Shier @ Sunday, May 29, 2016
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