DAILY UPDATES

Beaches-Leslieville Daily Updates: September–December 2019

Pop-up winter market on Carlaw for next two days

Withrow’s winter market is back at Crow’s Theatre, 345 Carlaw St., on Dec. 21 and 22. Locally handcrafted goods, artisanal foods and farm produce are brought together to provide unique gifts and holiday treats. Get the details in the Things To Do Listing.

Leslieville holiday flea market begins tomorrow

More than 65 vendors are selling vintage and handcrafted items at the Leslieville Flea Holiday Market at the Jimmie Simpson Recreation Centre over the Dec. 7-8 weekend. More information in our event listing.

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Santa and his kin sweep through Upper Beaches

Kingston Road west of Victoria Park Avenue was chockablock with kids and parents yesterday for the Beaches Santa Claus Parade. They cheered and squealed as the annual parade with floats, marching bands, costumed characters, service clubs and local celebrities went by. But their biggest response, of course, was for the sled carrying Santa Claus, accompanied by a waving Mrs. Claus.

See more about the parade and photos online and on Instagram.

Power outage map
Toronto Hydro maps show extent of power outage and expected time of restoration.

Power outage hits east end

Residents in the eastern neighbourhoods of the Beach and Upper Beaches were without electricity for several hours this morning, as parts of East York, Toronto and Scarborough were hit with outages.

The power went out at 8:48 a.m., according to Toronto Hydro. At 9:10 Hydro tweeted, “We’re aware of an outage affecting customers in Scarborough, from approximately St. Clair E south to Danforth, and Victoria Park west to Warden.” However, some residents west of Victoria Park Avenue were also struck, especially along Danforth Avenue and in Upper Beaches. More than 5,000 residents were estimated to be affected.

Hydro estimated work to restore power might take as long as six hours but some residents were reporting electricity was back on as early as 11:30 a.m.

No word from Hydro yet what caused the outage.

Santa parades down Kingston Road tomorrow

It’s the big day for east-end kids. The Santa Claus parade returns to the Beach area — the Upper Beaches to be exact — on Nov. 24. And winds up at a party at Community Centre 55, complete with kids activities, a barbecue and, of course, Santa. More about it in the Things To Do listing.

Danforth Study meeting overflows

Hundreds of east-end residents showed up to the first public meeting on the Danforth Study on Nov. 7. They spilled over from the cafeteria at Monarch Park Collegiate into adjoining rooms — to hear about plans for Danforth Avenue’s future and present their own views. City staff present said they were seeking community consensus, but at least one divisive issue was raised by members of the public. See the whole story and pictures in Streeter News.

Open house tomorrow for Danforth study

The Danforth community is invited to the first meeting about the Danforth Avenue Complete Street and Planning Study tomorrow from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Monarch Park Collegiate, 1 Hanson St. The open house will include a brief presentation and interactive group discussion to get community feedback. Find out more details about the study online at toronto.ca/danforthstudy.

Halloween on Queen is best ever

With Halloween itself just and the corner, hundreds of Beach residents took part in Halloween on Queen, presented by the Beach Village BIA on Saturday. They got their faces painted, entered contests, judged pumpkins, watched puppeteers, listened to music, and had faces painted in scary designs, and followed the grand wizard Moogly Googly in the costumed parade.

See pictures and story in Streeter news and see more more pics on our new Instagram account.

Newly planted trees hit by vandals

Vandals are being blamed for having removed nearly all of the 120 trees and shrubs planted by the community in Taylor Creek Park, next to Victoria Park Avenue on Oct. 5.

About six new plants remain, despite the city having already having replanted some of them since discovering 50 of them missing after the community planting event. Vandals, it seems, struck at least twice.

For more on this story see our account and photos in the Streeter News section.

Liberals fend off NDP in Toronto-Danforth

Toronto–Danforth stayed in the Liberal sea of red that stretches across Toronto by re-electing Julie Dabrusin as MP in the federal election yesterday. The late Jack Layton’s former seat had been considered the riding most likely to be taken back by the NDP in this election and at least one poll showed New Democrat candidate Min Sook Lee in the lead. However, in the end, Dabrusin won convincingly, with greater than 8,000 more votes than Lee.

For more about the election in Toronto–Danforth, see today’s featured news story.

A small forest planted on Victoria Park

One hundred and twenty new trees and shrubs were planted in less than an hour on Saturday morning by community members drawn to the city’s volunteer planting project. In fact, so many people showed up to help that the city ran out of trees for everyone to plant in the corner of Taylor  Creek Park alongside Victoria Park Avenue. More about the event — with pictures — in the News section.