WARMINGTON: Pushing illegal drugs won’t get you a bylaw ticket like handing out food will

You can shoot up heroin or smoke or sell fentanyl in Toronto without a city permit, but don’t dare try to set up a food kitchen on Thanksgiving to feed the homeless.

Just when you thought how Toronto can sometimes be a rigid, cold and mean city, comes news of some good Samaritans getting bylaw tickets for not having an up-to-date permit to hand out food to the indigent.

On Thanksgiving Sunday of all days.

Say it ain’t so, Mayor Olivia Chow? Her office has not yet responded to questions about this. But the people ticketed were surprised because Chow herself has come out to help them deliver sustenance and supplies to the needy in the past.

“One time she even brought her mother,” said Stephanos Lialias, of the mayor’s mom, Ho Sze Chow, who died at 92 in 2020.

But like her daughter, she wanted to help feed the hungry. Maybe the folks at Toronto bylaw didn’t realize any of that history when they handed out still fines to volunteers?

“We have been going there to help people for 17 years,” said Jaswinder Khosa, who came to Canada from India in 1988 and just wants to give back.

He said the bylaw officer told them they were responding to a complaint that they didn’t have a permit, but “we were told 12 years ago because there was no government funding for this, we did not need a permit and no one has ever before said that we need one.”

This bullying is repugnant. The City of Toronto should pull these tickets and fines and get on their hands and knees and apologize. Instead, however, they seem to be doubling down.

Feeding homeless started from a Bollywood film set

Khosa said the food delivery and kitchen started in 2008 when he was producing a Bollywood movie in which the stars and crew saw the need of people without food, gave the extra craft truck and luncheon leftovers to the homeless.

Once the production ended, they just kept coming back.

And he and the others vow they will be back again this Sunday no matter how much strong-arming comes from what appears to be heartless bylaw enforcement in Chow’s Toronto.

“We don’t care about any stupid ticket,” said Khosa. “I will plead not guilty, but if they want, I will pay the fine.”

He and his pals, who put up their own money to do this, should be given an award. Not harassment. Instead of getting a pat on the back, his ticket was for $300 for not having a permit to distribute food. The one Stephanos was involved in it was fined $300 for distributing food bags which can feed a family of five.

There was also a scolding coming for erecting a server-style tent.

“It was raining,” philanthropic businessman Stephano told my Toronto Sun colleague Jerry Agar on his Newstalk 1010 show. “We only raise a tent when there is inclement weather to protect the food.”

Selling drugs OK in Allan Gardens, but fines for hanging out meals

They didn’t notice, however, that bylaw enforcement was handing out any enforcement on those who set up camp permanently in the park.

“There were no tickets for the people involved with drugs there,” Stephanos told me.

Every morning, there are used drug needles everywhere with no ticketing or fines.

So why pick on these good people? Why now? The City of Toronto put out the following statement:

“The City of Toronto recognizes the important role community organizations play in supporting residents experiencing food insecurity. Our goal was to work with the organizers to help them continue their operations while meeting the requirements that apply to all organized events in City parks.

The statement continued by saying “the two charges that were issued to two different individuals from two separate groups that came forward as the person in charge: Food Not Bombs Volunteer and Seva Food Bank Volunteer are being fined for “Place/Install/Attach/Erect/Tent” and “Tent/Structure/Shelter in park without permit,” which under “Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 608-14: Set Fine – $250. Total Payable – $300,” which means the “total = $600.”

No apology. No reversing of the tickets. No common sense. No compassion. No humanity.

Just communist-style enforcement from a Big Brother government that turns a blind eye to every other kind of violation but doubles down on a group of largely immigrant Torontonians trying to help people.

Ba humbug. The city’s Christmas Scrooge has come out two months early.