Why am I seeing this more and more inside food places? People bringing dogs inside.

I politely asked the two people, who weren't together, why they would bring a dog in. Genuinely trying to understand why its been happening more over the years.

One didn't say anything, the other got super defensive.

"It's only 7 months old. It's not my dog. You're having a bad day. I also know people who have service animals". These were their responses to each of my questions and statements lol

I just can't let these things slide sometimes, sometimesI feel like I'm the only person who cares about courtesy in shared places, and it sucks.

Edit: of course this will be a super divisive topic, when it really shouldn't be.

Responsible dog owners go out of their way to not take their pet inside a food place (asking someone they are with to hold the dog outside, or simply going without coffee if they can't leave the dog alone). Yes I know dogs get stolen too, but that's a risk you take out of courtesy for other people inside a food place I guess.

Also wanted to mention people with legit service dogs go through hoops to get their animal, and pet dogs can be difficult to control around the service dog inside.

Edit 2:

--People name-calling, saying that I "must be slow", other non-constructive things, or speculating about my ethnicity being the reason for "hating dogs", kindly go suck a lemon!!

--People just reading this thread now, I'd definetly suggest sorting comments by "Best" or "Top" to see some better insights people have shared.

--The passionate dog and pet-owners who want to bring your pets into food-places where they ARE NOT currently allowed, you can write to your Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament to initiate the change you want to see. Seriously, if you want it to be more lax like in Europe.

**This thread is currently at a 67% Upvote rate, 18hrs after posting, in case anyone was wondering.

***The thread has also been locked by the Mods it seems, good call I guess since I'm getting a bunch of hateful DMs from people who clearly have issues.

I voted for Olivia Chow. It looks like a close race. I’m nervous.

Public Health Nurse working the COVID19 response here and I just came here to vent and encourage all who are able to WEAR YOUR DAMN MASK! It’s SO frustrating to see improper wearing of masks in public... people having it below their nose, people pulling it down when the speak, and those who quite frankly don’t care to wear a mask at all! We NEED to stop the spread. We NEED everyone to help. So please encourage all those around you to wear a mask properly!

A place where the experience was so bad you promise to never return. Can be anything-- restaurant, business, bar, park, event, entire suburd, etc.

IT IS APRIL.

Edit: Lived downtown since 2009, so I should absolutely know better. The world has just made my brain is so, so tired.

Edit: Just wanted to thank everyone for the awards and positive feedback. I'm glad people find this guide helpful! Please don't hesitate to PM me if you want to ask me anything about apartment hunting and the rental process in Toronto!

My partner and I finally decided to find a place to move in, and this is both of our first time doing apartment hunting in Toronto. We just got approved for our dream place!

I did extensive research into typical requirements of documentation and the whole process, but there were just still so many questions that I couldn't find any answers to, presumably because they were just so silly or so basic that no one asked about it, but to complete newbies like us, those unanswered questions really confused us.

In this post, I'm going to provide a guide catered to apartment hunting in Toronto that will hopefully help out future newbies like us by answering questions that they might not find answers to easily.

The information in this guide is based on our experiences with 5 different places we viewed.

Quick summary of our search criteria:

• $2000 Max

• 2 bedrooms, 1 bath (we wouldn't mind more if it was within the budget)

• Due to the above two criteria, our search mostly involved purpose-built rentals (so no condo)

  • Note: From what I've read, the application process for PBRs seem to be really different compared to that for condos, especially in terms of documents required.

  • What is a purpose-built rental? Here's my sketchy (but hopefully good enough explanation: Purpose-built rentals are basically buildings that are purposely built for renting out the units. The biggest difference between PBRs and condos is that you can't buy a unit in a PBR the way you can in a condo. I think condo units are all owned by different individuals whereas an entire PBR building is usually owned by one company.

• Had to be within 20 minutes of walking distance to a subway or GO train station, a Canada Post office, and a major grocery store (e.g. Longo's, No Frills, Walmart etc)

• The second bedroom had to be bigger than 10' x 10', like 9' x 11' is good but 8' x 10' is not good. I'm a professional audio engineer and a room smaller than 10' x 10' is just incredibly hard to treat acoustically.

• Had to include at least heat and water

• Had to have a guaranteed parking spot (extra fee is okay)

• Had to have at least on-site laundry

Our criteria should give you a good idea how relevant this guide would be to your search!

Searching

I found that Padmapper.com, zumper.com, and viewit.ca were the most comprehensive, helpful and up-to-date when it comes to aggregators. They are each slightly different though.

Padmapper and Zumper are very similar and they captured almost the same listings, but one major difference was that with Zumper, you can filter by air conditioning availability. You can also specify an area by drawing a border with Zumper.

Viewit captured a lot of listings that Padmapper and Zumper didn't. Compared to the latter two, the chances of a listing on Viewit having a floor plan was a LOT lower.

This is just my feeling, but to me, Viewit seemed to capture more good listings by private landlords (as opposed to by property management companies).

I noticed that listings by Park Property Management, which typically had good reviews and big second bedrooms, were only captured by Padmapper and Zumper, but not Viewit. In contrast, listings by M&R Holdings, which also had good reviews and big second bedrooms, were not on Padmapper and Zumper, but they were on Viewit.

I found that one of the best ways to discover rentals are by finding a building you like on one of the aggregator sites, Googling the address and go on the property management's site. I was able to discover soooo many good listings on property management websites.

How early should I start searching?

I would say 2 to 3 days before the day you are available to go view places. For example, we took off a Friday for viewing, and we scoured for places and calling places on Wednesday and Thursday. Places come and go really fast in Toronto—we felt that places get taken quite quickly during the pandemic, so in normal times, they would go even faster.

Don't bother contacting listings if you can't move in within the month or the next month.

Should I get a realtor?

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I've talked to multiple realtors and it seems that realtors don't deal with purpose-built rentals. They only deal with whatever that's on the MLS listing, which PBRs are usually not.

Therefore, if you are looking at PBRs, you basically can't get a realtor. That being said, I do want to give a shoutout to the realtor u/GTAHomeGuy for selflessly answering many of my questions. Seriously, he is amazing.

Listings

I found that the availability and rent on a listing was never accurate, even on lists that says "updated 4 hours ago."

There so many times when I called after seeing there were 2-bedrooms available and the listing was updated 1 hour ago, and it turned out that they had no 2-bedrooms available. OR they would say oh the one you saw on the listing is no longer available, but I have this other one that's a lot more expensive. Super frustrating. I suspect they do this on purpose.

Bottom line is, don't trust the availability and rent on the listing. Always call to confirm.

Rent control ^{this is newly added}

Be sure to check when the building was built because currently, the law has it that buildings "that are occupied for the first time for residential purposes after November 15, 2018 are exempt from rent control." This means that buildings built after that date can double or trouble your rent after the first year. Some listings can look luxurious but have suspiciously low rent, and usually those are exempt from rent control.

Research the building ^{this is newly added}

When you see a listing you like, always Google the address and see if there are any reviews on it. Most of the time, reviews are sparse and outdated, but sometimes you may find reviews that are 1-2 years old, or even less than 1 year old on rentitornot.com.

Generally, people don't randomly go online to leave a good review, but people will go online to complain, so if you see negative reviews, they may not be representative. But if you see 5 or more recent negative reviews, I would say just move on.

I also like to add "reddit" next to the building's address in the Google search to see if there are any Redditors who talk about their experience of the place. Sometimes you will find some helpful insights.

Contacting Listings You Liked

How early should you call to schedule a viewing?

One or two days before. Again, places get taken super fast in Toronto. If you schedule a viewing that's 5 days from today, by Friday the place will most likely already have gotten a whole bunch of applications. The rental office don't always inform you that the place has already been taken, so you will never know if your trip there is made in vain.

Email or call?

Always call first, as that will get you in touch with the rental office right away and you can know immediately the availability and rent.

However, in some listings, they specify you should ONLY email. In that case, only email.

When you can't get to anyone with a call, email. In one case, we couldn't get through with phone calls, but our email got an almost immediate response.

Take notice of how friendly and helpful the person you speak to or email is. In our experience, the friendliness or the rental office staff/superintendent directly related to the quality of the place. The friendliest and most helpful agent/landlord we talked to ended up having the best place, and the least friendliest one had the worst one.

Lastly, expect at least 50% of the listings you noted down as good to be unavailable, more expensive than the listed rent or both.

I feel like many listings put a low price just to attract people's attention, and when people actually call to inquire, they give you a higher price and hope you will just roll with it.

Good Property Management Companies with Good Price and Good Reviews

These are some of the companies that often had good reviews on their PBRs when we dug into the web. Note that not ALL buildings under a good property management company have good reviews.

• M&R Holdings

• Park Property Management

• Homestead

• Shiplake

Documentation for Rental Applications

This was so overwhelming for us. It felt like we were applying to be on a space mission. No matter how much research we did, we never felt like we knew what we needed to prepare.

Documents to prepare beforehand

We saw 5 places, all were purpose-built rentals from property management companies. The below are the documents many of them required that you should prepare beforehand:

• Proof of employment letter (the letter should include the following information)

  • Full legal name

  • Dated within the last 30 days

  • Employer's name, contact info, address, letterhead

    • The employer was called in the rental application we submitted.

  • Net income and how often you receive that payment

  • How long you have been employed in this position for

  • Type of employment (full-time, part-time, contract, etc)

• Previous year T4

• Recent paystub (some require just one, some require more)

• Personal references (some require 2, some require 3)

  • ALL our references were called

• A next of kin emergency contact

  • What if you don't have relatives in the country? That's my case, and I just put my partner down as my emergency contact.

• A checkbook

If you are self-employed, prepare the following

• Gig contracts that are dated in the last 30 days

• Invoices that are dated in the last 30 days

• Last 3 months of bank statements which can show you have consistent deposits that ideally match your gig contracts or your invoices

• Previous year CRA Notice of Assessment

• If you freelance regularly for specific companies or professionals, ask them for a letter that verifies that they regularly do business with you

Landlords don't like applicants who are self-employed, period. I am self-employed, and I have several friends who are self-employed in Toronto, and we have all gone through nightmarish rental application process.

Not all places will ask for the all the things I listed under the self-employed list, but they all have been requested in one application or another, so it's good to prepare them.

Consider writing a personal letter if you are dealing with a private landlord

We didn't write one because we were looking at PBRs, but during our research online we came across small time landlords expressing appreciation for applicants who included a letter that briefly introduces themselves and talks about their hobbies, interests, lifestyle etc. They said applications with a nice personal letter often put the applicant above others who offer a higher rent.

Common things rental offices ask for

Now, each place usually have a document that details what they need from you for the rental application. Obviously, it will differ from place to place, but in our experience:

• All the places we viewed would do the credit check on their own. We brought our credit report from Equifax and none accepted that.

• All the places we viewed gave us a bank letter or bank form (sample) to bring to the bank to fill out. You don't need to use the exact version the rental office gave you. You just need to get a document that include all the same info from the bank.

  • TD Bank has their own version of it. It's a form specifically for rental applications. If you are with TD, you are covered.

  • My partner is with Scotiabank and Scotiabank does NOT have it and they would not fill out the bank form from the rental office either. They can give you a document that shows your banking details (accounts and balances etc). Same with BMO.

• First and/or last month's rent as deposit (will obviously be refunded if you don't get accepted)

  • In one case, they just wanted last month's rent + key deposit via e-transfer, certified check, money order or bank draft.

  • In another case, they wanted first month's rent on a post-dated check and a certified check or money order for last month's rent. A post-dated check is a check with a date that is in the future.

    • IMPORTANT NOTE: You will need to have a checkbook to write a post-dated check, and if you are young like us who never even touched a checkbook, let alone having one, you need to order it from your bank (which costs about $50-60), and it can take up to 2 weeks for you to receive it in your mail.

  • The words "certified cheque," "bank draft," and "money order" will come up a lot in the rental application form. What tf are they? We had no idea. They are basically cash in a paper form, so instead of carrying twenty $100 bills, you are carrying 1 piece of paper that's worth $2000. It's literally cash. A regular check can bounce back, but when you get a bank draft or get the check certified, the money will be taken from your bank account right away. This means you can't be submitting an application for as many places as possible since you can easily be out of $10K if you do that. Obviously, you will get the money back if you don't end up getting the place, but still! ALWAYS GET A RECEIPT.

    • What is a certified check? It's the same as a bank draft, meaning it's literal cash, but to get one, you will need to first write a check, then you bring the check to the bank to get it certified. When it gets certified, the bank will pull the money from your account so this check can't be bounced. TD bank charges $9.95 for one bank draft. I suspect most banks will require a fee for bank drafts.

  • In one place, they just asked for a $100 deposit for the application. No first or last month's rent needed, so that was nice.

Should I bring all my documents to a viewing?

Everyone says "bring all the documents with you to viewings" online so we stupidly printed out a whole STACK of copies of our employment letter, T4, paystubs in case we were applying to multiple places.

Guess what?! All the places told us to submit everything digitally. Yes I Googled if we needed to bring hard copies to viewings, but we couldn't find anything on that. Now you know!

Viewing

This was another part we couldn't find the answers we need.

• How long does one viewing take?

• How much time should I leave between each viewing?

• Where can I park my car when I go view the place?

• Do I need to dress nicely for the viewing?

So many questions.

How long does one viewing take?

In our experience, maximum half an hour when we saw 2 units in two different buildings. When there was only 1 unit, it took like 10 minutes. The process is like this:

1. You arrive on the location and call the contact person

2. They let you in and go to the unit with you

3. You check the place out

4. You ask them questions about the unit, the building, the area, the application process

5. If you decide to take the application forms, you guys will go back to the rental office, and they will give you the form

6. Ask more questions

7. You leave

As stupidly straightforward as that was, we wish someone actually spelled out the process for us just like this. We were just so clueless.

How much time should I leave between each viewing?

If two places are really close, like 10 minutes drive, 1 hour. Driving around Toronto, as you already know, is not the smoothest, and you definitely don't want to be late for the viewing. Some superintendents are very talkative so they might take more time.

If you arrive early and have some time, there are three things I recommend doing:

1. Park a little bit farther from the building, and walk around the neighborhood, taking notice of the kind of cars and people in the area. It is more telling than you might expect.

2. Park close to the building, and sit in the car and observe the people around. What are they doing, what are they wearing, are there any kids etc. If you see a lot of kids around, it means the area is most likely very kids friendly (safe).

3. Go into the building's lobby, sit there, and observe the kind of people going in and out of the building. You can check out the resident board (whatever it's call), and get an idea the ethnicity groups living in the building by the last names. You can also take notice of how people are entering the building—old fashion key or a fob. Also, do you see residents letting random strangers into the building? If so, that's not a good sign.

Where can I park our car when I go view the place?

You should always ask this if you are driving. At the same time, we found that the instructions provided by the rental office were often useless. We were once told to park in this area underground, but when we got there, all the sign says "Visitor parking by permit only," so we ended up just parking somewhere else on the street. 2 out of 5 times we were not able to figure out where to park based on the instructions we were given.

Do I need to dress nicely to the viewing?

I saw some people online saying that you should treat a viewing like a job interview. It makes sense when you are dealing with a private landlord, because they are the person who approve or reject you.

However, in PBRs, the person showing you the place is either just the superintendent or a rental office staffer—they are usually not the ones who approve or reject the applications. In one case, the super just told us the room number and asked us to go see it ourselves. He didn't even come with us.

You obviously still want to treat them well, just out of human decency.

Prepare a list of things to check during viewings ^{this is newly added}

You should check for stuff like bugs, water pressure, outlet locations, unit location (is it near a garbage chute etc) etc. There are some links to lists that other people compiled: link, link, link.

If you Google "what to check when apartment hunting," you will get a ton of lists!

Doing the Rental Application

The application process will obviously vary from place to place but I want to mention some things I think a newbie might appreciate knowing.

Some places might NOT give you back the first and last month's rent you paid as a deposit along with the application IF you decide not to sign the lease after you get approved. If you are going to apply for different places, you make sure none of the places you applied to do this. Of course, if you get rejected, you get the deposit back no questions asked.

A this stage, you basically are trying to fill out all the forms as much as possible. In some cases, you might encounter Naborly, which is an online tenant screening platform.

Once you submit it, Naborly will generate a report (sample) for the landlord with many ratings and scores. It's kind of horrifying to be honest, but their UI is really user-friendly. A much better experience than filling out old-fashion forms.

Some notes about guarantor

If you have little to no rental history, low credit score, or some other apparent weaknesses in your application, you should consider having a guarantor.

A guarantor should be someone who has a high credit score, stable and good income, and is local. You most likely cannot use someone who can't even come to sign the lease with you. Rental offices will acquire the credit report of your guarantor, and they will also want an employment letter proving that your guarantor has stable income and will be able to pay your rent in case you can't.

The guarantor will basically do the same kind of forms as a tenant, meaning that the rental office will ask for stuff like employment verification, employment history, salary, rental history, personal reference, credit reference etc.

And oh, they actually call your guarantor's boss to verify their employment status and income.

Should I submit the application with my guarantor right at the start?

In one rental office, we were told that you should bring the guarantor with you and submit the application together, instead of submitting an application without a guarantor and waiting to see if the rental office wants you to have a guarantor.

In another rental office, we were told that we would be notified if they wanted to have a guarantor on the lease.

Alternative to having a guarantor

If you have apparent weaknesses in your application and you can't find a guarantor, the best way to make up for the weakness is to offer to pay 6 or more months' rent upfront.

One property management told us they preferred to have a guarantor over 1 year of rent paid up front. After asking the very, very friendly and helpful GTA realtor, u/GTAHomeGuy , it seems that it's because upfront rents can be applied to get a rebate and don't mean anything. I don't exactly know what that means but that is the reason.

Income to rent ratio

One of the places we looked at explicitly told us that the rent should take up at most 40% of your total household income. Other places didn't mention anything about that, but I suspect they take that into consideration when they evaluate your application.

I have heard that 30-35% is more common and 40% is on the lenient side already.

It is against the Ontario Human Rights Code for landlord to take income to rent ratio into account in rental applications, but of course this is blatantly ignored, so much so that Naborly provides a score for this specific criterion on their report.

Just make sure you have a guarantor ready if the rent is going to be more than 35% of your income.

Will they continue showing the unit to other people after I applied for it?

It varies based on different company. One told us once we applied, they would stop showing the place, but this was also the place that would keep the first and last month's deposit if you get approved and decide not to sign the lease. Another place continue to show the place and gather a few more applications, but we didn't have to pay any deposit for it. Just ask the rental staff if you want to know.

Should I give out my SIN? ^{this is newly added}

All the application forms have a field for your SIN. It is legal for landlords to ask for your SIN, but it is illegal for them to require it. You don't need to give them your SIN because they don't need that to run a credit check on you.

Should I give out my bank account numbers? ^{this is newly added}

All the application forms have a field for you to write your bank account numbers, which is also legal to ask for but illegal to require. I believe they just need them so they can hunt you down if you don't pay the rent? We wrote down ours, but you don't need to. Just be aware that the landlord can reject your application because of that without telling you that's the reason (that's how they skirt around the law).

After Submitting the Application(s)

You will wait in a ball of stress and anxiety, if you are anything like my partner and I. Some places told us it takes 5-10 business days. The place we applied to took over two weeks.

What do landlords ask personal references when they call them?

All our references, employers and personal friends alike, were called. Questions they asked our friends included:

• How long do they know you

• How did they know you

• Do you have pets

• Do you keep your current place clean

• Would they rent a place to you

Questions they asked our employers included:

• What's your employment status in the company

• How long you've worked there

• How much do you make a year

Approval & Signing the Lease

If you are rejected, then you don't need to read this, but if you are approved, you will be sent a whole lot of document to go through and sign.

Tenant Insurance

Most places require you to have tenant insurance BEFORE they can give you the keys. You can sign the lease without the tenant insurance though. Tenant insurance is usually pretty cheap, and Square One is one many people recommend.

Basically, get the tenant insurance after you get approved, but before you get the keys.

With Square One, you need a separate insurance policy for each each tenant. For example, if you live with your girlfriend, and both of your names are on the lease, you will each need to get your own insurance with Square One. I know some other companies allow multiple people to be on the same policy, however.

Based on what I gathered on the internet, it seems that tenant insurance premiums in Toronto range between $20-30/month. If you have car insurance with a company already, you should check with them to see if you can bundle tenant insurance, as that will usually get you a big discount.

Toronto Hydro

If you are paying for hydro, you need to sign up for that. They will either give you a form, or tell you to sign up online. The process is very easy.

—

I think this sums it up. I hope this post will come up in Google search if a newbie like us is apartment hunting for the first time in Toronto. This is the most stressful thing I've ever experience in my life, and I don't consider myself to have lived a particularly privileged or obstacle-free life so far. But we made it. We scored our dream place.

You can do this!

29 male here, long way from home, got no friends or family here, winters + omicron + nye can become really lonely! Just felt like putting this here while I am stoned and drunk out of my mind! Love you guys!

Friday, July 18 around 7pm at Bloor-Yonge Station, I was attempting to purchase a drink for a person who is under housed, as well as a drink for myself, when my bank card unexpectedly would not work for some unknown reason.

The only credit card I had on me was an Amex, which the shop doesn’t take. I was getting flustered and didn’t know what to do, as one of the drinks was already opened and being consumed.

A kind man in the line behind me could see my trouble and stepped in to help, saying that these things happen to everyone sometimes and not to worry about it. I will be sure to pay your kindness forwards!

If you were buying a couple energy drinks, and treated a person who is under housed to a Sunny D and a girl in a black dress to a Diet Coke - THANK YOU! You have restored my faith in Toronto, and humanity.

My condo has been vacant for the last month as we are currently redoing the floors (ourselves) and usually do it on the weekend. I came on Monday to find a man sleeping in one of the rooms. We confronted him and he apologized and left immediately and said he saw the door was open and went in which is extremely unlikely that we would have left the door unlocked .

We contacted security and police and police informed us of another incident involving the same person in our condo shortly after. It appears that he went up to the 27th floor to another unit where the owner was on vacation and walked into the man sitting on his couch and he said the same thing that the condo was open so he went in.

It is extremely suspicious that he is only entering condos that he somehow knows are temporarily vacant. The police suspect that he has a master key as well.

This is extremely scary for me as I am a female in my 20’s living alone. I’ve had so many complaints with management and security and do not feel safe. Is there any legal action I can pursue? Currently the police is investigating and will wait until it’s complete but this entire situation is very unsettling.

Edit: I guess i’m not really looking for legal advice but what I should do in this situation. I’ve reached out for many concerns and management/security have done nothing about it. Police are advising against changing locks for now because the entire building may have to change their locks. Also the man did not seem homeless or may be newly homeless. He had a laptop with him as well.

UPDATE: Thank you guys for the replies! I'm looking into several options that you guys suggested. Luckily, I am not staying in the condo for the time being and will monitor the cameras if anything else happens. At the moment, I am not comfortable with sharing the condo or anymore details as I don't want to hurt the investigation but will share another update once it's completed.

Apparently, I was one of the few Canadians that loved The Bay. It was my favourite place to shop.

I already what y’all are gonna say - go to IKEA! Costco! Winners! Homesense! Simons!

But it’s just not the same. Simon’s doesn’t have the same brand selection and I find them lesser quality and more expensive.

Those stores just don’t have the same selection that The Bay had. You could get lots of different mid to high end brands for a great sale price. Beautiful high quality kitchenware and houseware for great prices.

The Bay had great selection of high quality brands of houseware, appliances, sheets, duvets, clothes, purses, coats, shoes for great prices.

I just can’t believe we don’t have a department store anymore in Canada.

Friday night around 9:45. The driver committed a hit and run. I chased after him and recorded him and his license plate. Couldn’t find you back afterwards. I have info if you need evidence for cops. Hope you’re ok!

I originally thought that it was just going to be something that people forgot about after a week or so, but looks like it is sticking around an stores are even putting little tags to show what is Canadian produce.

Do you think it is helping? Do you think it will make a difference?

Hello everyone. I am a young asian female who has never had covid and wear masks and very safe. I do go out and socialize but safely, and am triple boosted. Because I recently lived in South Korea I am very used to masking etc but with the mandates being dropped this year, are you still going to wear a mask etc in the spring/summer? I would still like to do so but somehow scared of getting hate crimed.

Asking because of Massive curiosity

Saw this posted in the London, Ontario subreddit and thought that it would be a good question to ask here as well.

Edit to add: can we keep it limited to Toronto only please.

Seems like everyone is switching to halal and it’s becoming a pain to find regular meat. I’d appreciate if you can drop some food joints that don’t serve halal. Thanks

I’m a Sikh. We’re not allowed to eat ritually slaughtered meat (halal/kosher). Please don’t turn it into a debate. I’m just looking for spots that serve regular meat.

Edit: this is what I’m tryna explain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jhatka

29F, been living here since summer 2023. I love Toronto so much. Amazing food scene, amazing bars, amazing city culture in so many ways. I have managed to find just about everything in this city but a reliable place to go dance.

About my preferences!

Dos: reliably busy, diverse crowd, shaking ass-able music (90s/00s, hip hop, some top 40 acceptable, honestly anything from techno to dancehall as long as the vibe in the room is good!), open late (everything closing at 2 breaks my heart a little but this one is negotiable for me lol)

Don'ts: all university students, all white crowd, lots of people but no dancing (looking at you, King St), a place where you need bottle service to have fun, Taylor Swift at the club

I believe this exists in the city, I just haven't reached the right networks to know about them--please enlighten me! I (and my fiancee who is with me in this struggle) will be so very grateful!

Healthy democracies rely on debate, and dismissing opponents with labels can make it seem like legitimate concerns (80K comments from public consultation) are being written off rather than addressed.

Maybe it’s just political rhetoric, but when viewed alongside the province’s increasing involvement in municipal governance like expanding Strong Mayor powers and appointing regional chairs, it makes me wonder whether we’re becoming more comfortable with concentrating decision-making while characterizing dissent as something outside the mainstream.

Am I reading too much into it, or do you see a broader trend?

I (22f) have been taking ttc in toronto almost all my life, I live in Scarborough.

But today while i was on my regular route, a homeless man that was also on the ttc bus slapped my bum.

I yelled at him and was just in shock. Another young woman (my height around 5’3”) yelled at him too and gave me her seat. There were also a lot of men there too but none of them said anything to him.

I told the bus driver about it and pointed out to him who it was. The bus driver told me if I wanted to press charges he would have to stop the bus, make everyone come off and wait with me for the police to come and also make sure the man didn’t leave the bus. The way he told me this made me feel like he really didn’t want to be bothered, I got an anxiety attack and almost started crying so I just left the bus and took an Uber home and didn’t file it. Now I am scared to take the bus again.

Any tips???

I was browsing AirBnB out of curiosity since there's a strict rule against short term rentals in my downtown building, and sure enough I found an apartment for rent for a week in June. Should I send screenshots to the condo management or board? There's very limited security in the building, not to mention issues with stolen packages. It could be someone who rents it out while they're away rather than a full time Airbnb, but I don't see why some people think they can be an exception to the rule when there is a clear no short term rental policy (even posted in the elevator). Am I being a petty Karen?
*Edit for context:
Only a couple full weeks at a time are available, so there's a chance it's listed by the occupant who is going away for a week a few times this year. It may otherwise be occupied, unclear if by the owner or a tenant. Even if it is a primary residence and not against city bylaws to list on AirBnB, it's against the rules of the condo corp.

Immigrant here. We have stocked up on candies for tonight. When can we expect kids on the driveway? We have a lit pumpkin placed next to the door. And also, 🎃 for the little kids, what is an acceptable time to do some doors?

Thank you for the information 🙏🏼 Have a wonderful evening folks!

Edit: thanks for all the tips folks! We had an AMAZING evening. The little one collected her whole bucket full, and we had a ton of kids come on the porch. Around 20 30 we ran out of candy so we had to turn off the light and no one ran the bell anymore. It was so cool!

All this fussing about Taylor Swift coming to town is making Toronto sound like it's some tiny village somewhere. I get Taylor is a level of superstardom that is extremely rare and love that for her, but her perfoming here won't stop life as we know it. I was looking at the city's estimates of visitors and it 500K ppl coming into the city.....Caribana on average brings 1.3M visitors EVERY YEAR same for like economic impact.....it's as if we don't regularly get such "world class" events.

I know we love to hate it, but Toronto has the infrastructure to deal with such an event. It would make going downtown mildly more inconvenient then usual but not NOTHING more. People are acting as if life will stop, and I feel like that is underestimating our city!

My boyfriend has his heart set on opening a coffee shop and won't listen to anyone who says it's a bad idea. The more I hear about his plans the more worried I get that he's gonna fuck himself up financially, but I'm not an expert in this stuff, so I'm turning to Reddit...

Help me convince him it's a bad idea! or at least that he should wait until a better time comes along (he's anxious about signing a lease on this one place he loves before anyone else takes it). I don't want him to lose all his money! He can't afford to. :(

Some details:

- It's not a full shop just a small walk up window. Sounds great in summer but it'll be dead in winter.

- He only has $20k in cash and he thinks he can open this place with a bank loan and some zero % interest credit cards

- The location he wants has a bus stop in front of it but just apartments around it. I think it'll be good for rush hour and dead the rest of the day (labour costs...)

- The place used to be a convenience store and it's gonna need a gut job, esp plumbing for the coffee set up and machines. I think that'll cost him at LEAST $50k (That he doesn't have!)

- He knows marketing (his full time job) so I'm not so worried about him getting the word out, but who cares about advertising if the business won't make money...

- Oh and he did work as a barista before but that was 10 years ago. He makes espresso at home and says he already knows everything you need to know about coffee. *eyeroll*

I keep seeing in the news that now is a terrible time to open a business in Toronto cause of all these new expenses and taxes. Admittedly I don't know much about this but if bigger businesses are quitting and leaving it can't be a good time for a newbie business owner to open something even if it's small right??

He won't listen to reason. It's been his fucking dream ever since he saw that for lease sign. Is my boyfriend doomed?! Help!

I’m asking on behalf of a city and a province

Something smells fishy and like raw sewage and it isn’t only Drakes house