Cracking down on highrise apartment veranda villains

Toronto’s chair thrower is a dramatic example

The most shocking thing about the mystery-woman-throws-chair-off-balcony video that appeared on Instagram this week (besides of course, the fact that someone threw a chair off a balcony, on camera, like it was no big deal) is that no one was injured or killed in the aftermath.

A chair plummets toward a busy street and you assume someone is going to get hurt. But the only person hurting as a result of this event is presumably the chair-thrower herself, a woman likely in her twenties who police say they have identified — but whose name they have not released.

If you haven’t seen the viral video posted to Instagram alongside the caption “good morning” it depicts a leatherjacket clad young woman with blond hair picking up a cheap looking patio chair and hurling it over a highrise balcony railing onto the downtown streets below.

Almost just as outrageous as the act itself is the time of day at which it is believed to have occurred. Police say the video was filmed at 10 a.m., which seems rather early for mischief causing danger to life.

But people who do very bad things on balconies are not deterred by the morning sun. Nothing it seems can deter them from making life miserable for those who live below, beside, and directly above them, no matter what time of day it is.

Of course, Toronto’s mystery chair thrower deserves the scolding she’s getting online and whatever legal woes are coming her way because no matter how much she may regret launching that chair into the air, she could have killed somebody, or several people. She’s lucky she didn’t.

But it’s worth noting, while our entire city is on the subject of bad balcony behaviour, that our mystery chair thrower is a symptom of a bigger problem. The Toronto skyline is a panorama of glass towers and a great number of those towers have balconies. And a great many residents of and visitors to them do not behave well out on deck.

These veranda villains range from the rude (partying at all hours) to the dangerous (throwing cigarette butts, alcohol bottles, trash and dog crap off their terraces). It may not be as viral-worthy as throwing furniture but throwing cigarette butts off balconies — an extremely common practice in Toronto — is arguably just as dangerous as tossing a metal chair over a railing.

It seems the only way Toronto residents can avoid living next to or walking underneath problem balconies is by camping out in front of a condo building and identifying precisely where the menaces live. That or you can do your best to avoid city sun decks altogether.

Having recently moved from a condo full of them to a walk-up with none, I can’t stress how much better I’ve been sleeping. Outdoor space is grossly overrated in a frigid city where those brave enough to spend quality time on their tiny platforms in the sky in the dead of winter are probably drunk.

Until I moved I was routinely woken up by a group of guys who partied almost exclusively on weeknights, on a third-floor balcony in the condo beside my own. “Hey can you keep it down please?” I’d call out to them from the second floor, feebly, again and again, at half past 4 a.m. To which their leader, a kindergartener in the body of an adult man would respond,

“Why are you so annoying?”

(I have to be honest, I was unprepared and embarrassed by how much this hurt my feelings).

Recently, before I moved, I saw something fly past my condo window, tossed I assumed, from a balcony far above. It was a large pizza box, whose few remaining slices flapped in the wind like little orange flags. No it wasn’t a chair.

And yes, Toronto’s chair thrower will get what’s coming to her.

But so should every other veranda villain in this city. No matter what they throw overboard.