*FEATUREDNEWS

Matlow exposed to coronavirus, meeting for Mabel’s Fables put on hold

A meeting to save Mabel’s Fables children’s bookstore has been cancelled for tonight after Toronto-St. Paul’s councillor Josh Matlow announced he is going into isolation due to exposure to the coronavirus.

“While I am completely asymptomatic, out of an abundance of caution, and on the advice of Dr. Eileen de Villa, the City’s Medical Officer of Health, I am going into self-isolation until March 20,” Matlow said in a statement released yesterday.

He had been informed he had come into contact on March 4 with a person who tested positive for COVID-19 after returning from a conference in Washington, D.C., he said.

Matlow had been the main organizer of the meeting scheduled for this evening at Eglinton Junior Public School to save the Mt. Pleasant Rd. store.

“One of Canada’s last remaining independent children’s bookstores is under threat,” according to a statement from Matlow’s office. The store’s building “has been bought by a property speculator who is assembling buildings on Mount Pleasant, north of Hillsdale Avenue East, and is demanding an unaffordable rent increase, seemingly to push them out.”

Mabel’s Fables has operated at 662 Mt. Pleasant Rd. for 31 years and in addition to selling kids books hosts readings for kid by authors and celebrities.

The store has received a final offer from its new landlord, Maple Venture Properties, that increases the rent by 70 per cent, according to Matlow.

Matlow is cancelling all public meetings but said the event to support Mabel’s Fables will be rescheduled.