Knob Hill Plaza backslides into trashy squalor
Some things never change, like the trashy state of affairs at the Knob Hill Plaza, on Eglinton Ave. E.
We’ve reported several times on squalor in front of and behind the plaza, on Eglinton Ave., west of Brimley Rd., which has for many years been a smelly local eyesore.
Unlike most retail plazas, Knob Hill storefronts are individually owned, which means the city cannot hold a sole landlord responsible for compliance with bylaws that address cleanliness and trash.
The mess in the alley is consistently appalling, while some tenants in second-floor apartments above the storefronts have shown little interest in us- ing trash and recycling bins to put garbage out to the curb for collection, instead tossing garbage in small shopping bags into the alley or along the sidewalk.
After we reported on it, Municipal Licensing and Standards did a sweep of the alley, hiring a contractor to clean it up and documenting where trash was found, so they could bill individual storefront owners for its removal.
Officials told us that the idea was to impress upon store owners that if they won’t ensure that the alley remains clean, the city will take care of it and make them pay the bill.
In theory, it’s excellent. But MLS inspectors have previously issued hundreds of compliance orders that were ignored, which suggests the store owners think there’s more bark than bite to the city’s approach.
After the crackdown and enforcement blitz in early May, MLS officials said they’d keep a close eye on the plaza, to ensure there was no backsliding. Fat chance. Mark Sraga, who’s in charge of investigations for MLS, asked us to let him know if we spotted signs that store owners were not sticking to their responsi- bility to keep their area behind their storefronts clean.
So we weren’t surprised when we had to send him another note, after taking a cruise through the alley earlier this week and finding that things were almost as bad as they’ve ever been.
We spotted old couches and mattresses dumped along the periphery of the alley.
The smell of rotting fish outside a dumpster behind one store was as bad as ever.
A huge pile of old furniture and other illegally-dumped junk was left at the corner of a building.