FIRST SAID IT WAS COMING TO LESLIEVILLE?
I wasn't living in this area at the time but i remember the buzz. Leslieville was getting a Starbucks and many locals were pissed. Interestingly enough, I was looking through some old websites and found this article by famous Leslieviller- Joe Clarke...I have posted some of my favorite excerpts below:
- The construction workers are building a Starbucks Corp. café – and anyone considering buying or selling a home in Canada’s frothy real estate market would be wise to take note. [...] “When I see a Starbucks going in, I rub my hands together because I know property values are going up,” said [in-no-way-greedy] real-estate agent Diane Walton.
Company executives work with networks of real-estate brokers and agents, and when the coffee chain decides it wants to expand into a new “trade zone,” it asks the real-estate professionals to find the right location.
“Sometimes we’re a little early, but that’s okay. We’re going to be in business for a long time,” [Starbucks president Colin] Moore said.
- In the downtown’s west end, the Drake Hotel spearheaded the revival of a gritty section of Queen Street. The popular restaurant and bar attracted other retail businesses to the area, including a Starbucks.... While under construction, the Starbucks was a frequent victim of a persistent graffiti artist who kept spray-painting “Drake, you ho, this is all your fault” on the store.
[...] Clark said he thinks a Starbucks would be a good thing for the area. “It’ll be a benefit to the neighbourhood. There’s no reason to fear Starbucks,” said Clark, underlining the gentrification of Riverside and Leslieville, like what’s currently taking place in Queen West and West Queen West, is a non-issue. With mixed uses throughout the area including a variety of social-housing developments, light industry, garages, gas stations, parks, and community centres, Clark assured [me?]“Queen East will never become Queen West.”
- Leslieville already has coffee shops and bars that attract low-income people, many of them vulgarians and borderline drug dealers who look fresh off the boat from Newfoundland. (I’m a poor boy from New Brunswick; I know the type.) By implication, opponents of gentrification are opponents of establishments that cater to people other than these. But the establishments that do cater to the Baymen of Leslieville aren’t going anywhere. Is it so much to ask for some of the rest of us to have a pleasant place to sip a cup of coffee?
article: A Starbucks in Leslieville. What me Worry? Joe Clarke
photo: by SSPBOYD
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