Photo: "Closed For Renovations" by Bradley J. Reinhardt, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):

Oooops. Someone clearly wasn't paying close enough attention, and a 4-year-old kid ended up being left alone, locked in the dark, at a city-run daycare centre until police found him there after 11pm. No charges have been laid (against the daycare) and no extra charges will be incurred by the parents (for the 5h of extra "care").

Flashbacks of the Harris days: The Toronto District School Board is desperately looking for ways to cut spending, and it may be that a bunch of teachers and librarians (working in low income neighbourhood schools) get axed. We'll just lock them up in a room until 11pm every night, with Google and Wiki and Nintendo DS, and the kids'll be just fine, right?

Mom-and-pop food stores and restaurants in the GTA have been targeted by low-life-scum-scammers. Posing as official government food safety inspectors, they visit establishments and convince owners to fork over money for totally bogus mandatory food and water safety testing services. Luckily people are asking the right questions, and the scammers haven't been terribly successful in their quest to rip off hard-working folks.

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Legendary band Depeche Mode is launching their new international tour with a date in Toronto in July. Tickets aren't available at Ticketmaster yet, but you can spend your life savings at their subsidiary company, TicketsNow, right now, to get killer seats. Seems like Ticketmaster is not phased by the recently launched class action lawsuits against them.

Hollywood North is back! After a dismal 2008, Toronto as a major filming location is once again picking up steam. The National Post cites the weakening Canadian dollar, and a promotional push by the city as factors playing in our favour. With any luck, we'll see Saw parts VI through XLVI filmed here in Toronto.

Ontario wants to change the law, so that the province can take the giant tobacco companies to court over health care costs incurred as a result of their product. Estimates peg the cost to our health care system due to smoking in the billions of dollars.

We've finally found a solution to Toronto's crime problem. Everyone that's not into crime will move just 40km away to Caledon, the safest city in Canada, leaving all of the bad people in Toronto.

Addendum:
My bad... I posted this to the blogTO Twitter yesterday afternoon and probably should have repeated it here as well:

In a highly unexpected move, the OMB has rejected a bid by SmartCentres to build a giant big box retail complex in Leslieville.