What's he on about now?

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   Monday, June 02, 2003

I'LL BET AMSTERDAM'S PUBLIC SQUARE IS BETTER

While walking past the bus-terminal-from-the-Balkans that is Toronto's new Dundas Square, I was relieved to see half a dozen steel café tables scattered about, with matching chairs around them. A trio of old men were sitting and talking at one table, a young couple at another. "Well that's a bit more like it," I thought as I continued on to work.

Eight hours later, I decided to stroll across this new slightly-warmer square on the way home and saw a pair of uniformed security guards asking a group of teenagers to leave one of the tables. From what I could see, the kids were sitting together, talking and smoking, as one of the guards said, "It's a nice night. Why don't you go for a walk?" These kids were about as threatening as a bag of English muffins and they slouched away with pouts on their faces.

"So what was all that about?" I asked one of them, as they came my way. "They don't want us to smoke there," said the one guy in a tank-top and a backwards baseball cap. "What, it's a non-smoking square?" I laughed. "No man," he said, "We were smoking a joint." "Oh," I said -- I'm thick that way -- "Well who's that harming?" "That's what we said," he shrugged and the group continued on.

This is a tidy little litmus test, isn't it? Are these just good kids unable to find a place to hang out without being hassled, or are these worthless punks committing crimes on public property? I guess the answer depends on one's age or, more importantly, one's attitude towards marijuana. I've always felt pot is, at best, good fun, at worst, somewhat unhealthy. Criminal charges are ridiculous. I'm old and stodgy enough to see why Dundas Square security would hardly want to condone pot smoking on their turf, but I still think that chasing the kids away from an outdoor venue is just heavy-handed and silly.

Guards shouldn't drive citizens out of Dundas Square until they've actually done something wrong -- there's few enough people there as it is.