Quote of the week:

"I’m afraid they are going to be railroaded and that they will end up with inappropriate sentences." - Alberta Federation of Labour president Les Steel, on setting up a legal defence fund for the three Calgary students accused of hitting Premier Ralph Klein with a banana cream pie.

Shopkeepers oppose
eco-buses

In one corner: people trying to improve the quality of the city oxygen we suck into our lungs. In the opposite corner: beleaguered customer- hungry mom ’n’ pop shopkeepers fighting for their survival under the pressure of big box stores.

The two sides are opposed over a plan to bring super-long, environmentally friendly buses to the city. The first proposed route would run along the four-kilometre 105 route that rolls along Sherbrooke from the Vendôme metro to the Montreal West train station. The problem is that the buses would gobble up two or three extra parking spots at every spot.

"The merchants want their customers," says Evelyn Znoj, a rep for the Sherbrooke Street West Merchants’ Assocation. "Parking is the main preoccupation for these shopkeepers. There’s a lot of turnover and usage of these spaces on Sherbrooke."

Other merchants’ associations also say they’d oppose any such buses. "Street parking is our biggest problem, we need more of it," says Patrick Rouillard for the shopkeepers on Fleury. "We could definitely use more, not less, parking," says Robert Batista, speaking for the merchants of Queen Mary.

But Montreal Transit Commission rep Odile Paradis says that West End city councillors support the plan to put 11 accordion-like electric/biodiesel buses - at the cost of $1.2-mil each - along Sherbrooke. The $30-million project, if approved, would be funded equally by the feds, province and private sector, and would start in late 2004. "Our objective isn’t to be anti-shopkeeper," says Paradis. "We think the project can cohabitate with commercial activity." » Kristian Gravenor

Arsenic and old wood

Some Montreal playgrounds are steeped in a carcinogenic poison, according to Toronto environmental group Earth Defence Canada, and the city is lagging behind in efforts clean them up. A follow-up to a study released last January on the amount of arsenic in the playgrounds of seven cities across the country reveals that only Toronto is taking steps this year to clean them up. Of the remaining six, only Ottawa and Halifax have plans to address the issue. Montreal, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Edmonton don’t.

"Three of the five playgrounds we tested in LaSalle had arsenic levels that were above the Canadian safety guidelines," says BoAnne Tran, the project coordinator at Earth Defence Canada. The group tested the sand in parks whose lumber had been treated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA). Rainfall can cause arsenic in the wood to leach into the sand, increasing the children’s chance of exposure. The safety limit of arsenic in sand is 12 parts per million. She says LaSalle’s Riverside Chalet park had 104 parts per million, the second-worst results of all the park tested.

"The first step is to seal the wood with an oil-based sealant, which you can paint on once a year," Tran says. "That will prevent leaching by up to 50 per cent. But the sand also has to be replaced." She also says that all arsenic-treated structures should be replaced with safer building materials, and lists of all the parks with arsenic-treated wood should be made public. » Patrick Lejtenyi

Kinks out for charity

Get your cuffs out, because this Friday, July 18, fetish and fundraising are going hand-in-hand. Montreal fetish bar The Funhouse Lounge (which is not, they will have you know, a sex club) is holding Fetish Fantasma, a cabaret-style night to raise money for AIDS Com- munity Care Montreal (ACCM). This is to be the first of a series monthly events hosted by the Funhouse, aimed at supporting different community organizations.

The ACCM is a local, volunteerbased organization that’s been around now for 15 years. "We education and prevention," says Mylène St-Pierre, director fundraising at the ACCM, "as well as offer support to people with HIV and those who are affected by it, like partners."

St-Pierre says that the idea team up with the Funhouse was born of a shared philosophy, explaining that the club’s mandate is to offer a safe place for people express themselves without being judged. "We both believe that sex can be fun," she says. "Even if you have HIV, sex can be a life-affirming thing."

The evening will offer an array live performances, including such fetish fare as drag-queen contortionism, body art modification and an act that involves "a two-way mirror she-to-he performance." But details on that are staying on the down-low until Friday.

The Funhouse Lounge is located at 2102 Ste-Catherine E. Tickets are $10 and all proceeds go to the ACCM. For more info go www.funhouselounge.ca. » Alexandra Spunt

Rear view

11 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
July 16–July 23, 1992

On the cover: Poet Michael Pintard, one of many black Montreal artists engaged in the Association du Reggae Montréalais/Montreal’s Union for Reggae (ARMMUR). The reggae scene, with the closing of several venues including the Rising Sun, Terminal and Club Nubia, is said to be struggling. "In terms of places to go, Montreal has changed for the worse," says Hayes "Kali" Thurston. "Even on terms of financial arrangements, it’s gotten worse."

• The politics of cigarette smuggling is examined, from law enforcement, anti-smoking and manufacturers’perspectives. The Non-Smokers’ Rights Association says the tobacco companies "have a vested interest" in smuggling because "they can convince the government to roll tobacco taxes back to the U.S. level, which is what they are trying to do."

• England’s Dreaming, a book about the Sex Pistols, by NME reviewer Jon Savage, is given a bad review. "At over 600 pages," writes Ian Stephens, "the book is far too lengthy to justify itself, except as an inaccurate source for devotees of the period."

Angel >> The Canadian passport Because of heightened security fears, by 2005 all Canadians will be carrying a high-tech national identification card, complete with biometric and personal data, the feds said earlier this week. Privacy and civil rights experts - and Quebec Immigration Minister Michelle Courchesne - immediately cried foul, saying the passport was good enough and warned of potential long-term abuse. Civil rights lawyer Julius Grey told the Mirror that the planned card is based on obsolete European technology and is vulnerable to abuse by private-sector marketers out of control. The card’s timetable is designed to coincide with new U.S. entrance-exit controls, and will be further studied in the fall.
Insect >> The clap Also known as gonorrhea, the sterility-causing STD has rebounded over the past five years, after 20 years of steady decline. Health Canada scientists warned this week that infection rates have grown by 40 per cent since 1998, thanks in large part to decreased fears of contacting HIV and resistance to antibodies. Rates of infection are especially bad in the Maritimes and among gay men. The symptoms are nasty: pus-y, painful discharge in men and women, and vague abdominal cramps among women. However, symptoms are not manifested in as much as half of all cases, thereby compounding the risk of acquiring other STDs.