WARMINGTON: Jewish biz's window smashed again as city councillors consider pay bump
Goldstruck Coffee was vandalized for the third time in a year in a city where the priority is giving councillors a $33,000 annual raise
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Only in Toronto would you see city councillors considering a 24% wage increase while a Jewish-run coffee shop has been attacked three times in one year.
When you can’t keep the public you serve safe, maybe those charged with that duty and pulling down serious taxpayer money should get a 24% decrease in pay.
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WARMINGTON: Jewish biz's window smashed again as city councillors consider pay bump Back to video
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Or maybe if they do end up getting $33,000 annual increases that, if passed, would push council pay from $137,537.40 to $170,588.60, they can all chip in for the Goldstruck Coffee shop’s broken-window fund.
But, warning, it’s starting to add up. And these victimized businesses are not getting raises.
“Twice in one week” and “three times this year” the Richmond St. cafe has been either smashed or broken into, its owners said.
The owners posted to Instagram “overnight our coffee shop was targeted again” as “we had just finished repairs from last weekend’s attack.”
It’s not a time for councillors to get a raise. It is a time for Mayor Olivia Chow and council to acknowledge this is not a safe city for Jewish people to live, study or do business in. They are all nothing but failures. Failures who, if they accept the staff report, will add another $950,000 expense to the city already hit with 16% tax increases in last two years.
There is at least one councillor earning his money and that is James Pasternak. Since Oct. 7, he has seen his city and ward became a warzone of attacks on Jewish people, homes, schools and businesses.
“The escalating violence against Jewish businesses and institutions demonstrates a complete societal failure in addressing the hateful mobs on our streets and those they incite,” he told the Toronto Sun on Tuesday. “Toronto is heading toward the abyss. It is crucial that law enforcement, the judicial system and bylaw enforcement do their jobs to keep everyone safe.”
Even if they do, the courts don’t take these kinds of crimes seriously.
Toronto Police are investigating the latest cafe attack.
But the tone of antisemitism was long ago set when police and the courts didn’t treat the first incidents post Oct. 7, 2023, in a zero-tolerance way. As Meir Weinstein of Israel Now warned, if you don’t respond to the broken windows, the people breaking them will keep doing so.
Ironically, this shop is an example of the “Broken Windows” crime theory in that if you treat this kind of thing as a serious crime, you stop more serious crime.
And, like the pro-Hamas crowd at Al Quds Day stepping on the Israeli flag, these are not just property crimes, but hate crimes.
“This year’s rally included individuals wearing Hamas headbands and defacing Israeli flags with the Nazi hooked cross,” said Austin Parcels, manager of research and advocacy for B’nai Brith Canada. “These are not expressions of peaceful protest. They are displays of hate, aligned with the messaging and goals of the Iranian regime that created this event.”
The people who target Jews know they can get away with it, which is why they keep doing it.
I don’t think the prime minister, premier, mayor, police chief or councillors take any of it seriously enough. It’s organized, domestic terrorism and if was some truckers, the political class would pull out all the stops.
On this, all I see is a big yawn from authorities who have fat salaries, fat benefits and fat pensions and don’t give a damn about the small-business people who are systemically violated because of their religion.
Luckily we were able to get surveillance footage from the coffee shop and if you know who the people are in these videos, please call police and maybe with some pushing from B’nai Brith and Pasternak, they try to track down the culprits.
Either way, whoever they are need to know that they have not intimidated this business.
“They have shattered the glass but not our energy, our team, or our love for what we do,” Goldstruck said on social media. “We’ll fix the glass again, clean up again and open the doors again because no matter what, your can’t break Goldstruck.”
But go ahead and take your 24% raise, city council. Goldstruck and the rest of the taxpayers who will pay it understand that they are all here for you and not the other way around.
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