Samaritan of the Square
I hate it when City Hall keeps hammering on a guy ...Laaaadies and gentlemen, let's get ready to buuuuumble.
In the red corner: From the crossroads of Church and Wellesley. Carrying a lot less weight when Mayor Miller's gone.
Aged 55. A record of six wins, one by acclamation, and no losses. Holder of three titles: a BA and master's degrees in medieval history and library science.
The Pride of Downtown. The King of Queer. The pudgy, the pugnacious ...
Kyle Rae. Raaaae.
And in the feelin' blue corner: From John St. by way of Trinidad. Weighed down by red tape.
Aged 67, with a record of 22 years selling souvenirs at Yonge and Dundas. Friend to the hungry, the lost, the streetwise, the hopeless. Holder of a vendor's permit and an unofficial "Toronto Ambassador" title.
The Samaritan of the Square. The Knight of Knick Knacks. The Duke of Doodads. The pissed-off, the fed up...
Harold Garnett. Gaaarnett.
Sheesh. Where's Rocky when you need him? Someone to take a few rounds out of the meatheads at City Hall, like Rocky Balboa in the slaughterhouse.
Remember Harold Garnett?
I introduced you to him a year ago, after he'd been hauled off in handcuffs for setting up his souvenir cart where he'd set it up for more than two decades.
That spot outside the northeast corner of the Eaton Centre made Harold happy for 22 years. "People could see my stuff," he says.
But City Hall, including Councillor Rae, has been trying to force him off the beaten path, back against a wall on Dundas. They point to heavier sidewalk traffic, especially since those four-way scramble crosswalks were installed in August of 2008.
The new spot is a backwater. Only pigeons, smokers and drunks hang around that wall. None of them is in the market for Harold's stuff -- I Love Toronto shirts, Maple Leafs caps, flags of the world.
Harold's business dropped by half. Plus, the pigeons crapped on him. So he eased his cart back toward his old spot, a dozen paces away.
That's when City Hall took him down. I wrote then that I hoped Rae would reach a truce with Harold. Get him a spot out from under the pigeons, but far enough from the newfangled crosswalk.
I should have known better.
Two Saturdays ago, the city pounced again. At least this time, the bylaw officers and 52 Division cops did not cuff him. "This cart is seized!" they declared. Then they loaded it, souvenirs and all, onto a flatbed truck and off to an impound lot.
Harold fled home to John St. "I have a heart murmur, so I can't get excited," he tells me. "I got out of there."
It cost him $500, again, to bail out his cart. Plus he has four new tickets and a court date later this month.
"Kyle Rae is behind the whole thing," he tells me yesterday, back in exile against the wall.
The pigeons are away, though they've left plenty of evidence. A woman with loneliness in her eyes stops to chat, and Harold slips her five bucks.
The Samaritan of the Square believes a complaint by Rae prompted his latest bust, though licensing boss Lance Cumberbatch won't say, citing privacy rules.
"I don't know what Kyle Rae has against me," says Harold.
Good question. So I ask it.
"The councillor has no comment," aide Mark Wilson tells me.
But "he says it is nothing personal with Harold."
After the takedown last year, Rae told me Harold has "played games" for years.
"As pedestrian counts get higher, he can't stay there. But he doesn't listen. He thinks he has a right to go where he wants."
As in, where he has been for 22 years, long enough to become an icon?
Hmmm. I thought an elected rep is supposed to rise to your defence, or at least be on your side.
If your city councillor can't get a souvenir cart moved six paces closer to Yonge St., what good is he?
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