Only politicians go downhill as fast as these toboggan `thugs'

Agang of raging tobacconists terrorized some local sports resorts recently. These nicotine pimps have no respect for . …

“Oops … what's that? Oh. Sorry. My bad.”

That should read a gang of raging tobogganists. It is so difficult to keep up with criminal classifications these days, especially in Toronto. If you have been listening to some of its police and fire authorities, the city is getting wilder than Chicago during Prohibition. There's a new crime wave afoot, or maybe that should be a-sled.

The gang was the dreaded Downhill Cruisers — their toque colours spandex crimson and canary yellow. Police have warned that if you see any of these young people hauling their oak boards towards a hill in your neighbourhood — go indoors immediately or hide behind a big tree.

The swarms were alarming. Seven- to 14-year-olds, some of them big for their age, could be seen in clusters of three or four, over and over again, climbing up a hill, then at the very top settling on their hardwood boards, sitting upright, feet forward (known in the underworld argot of tobogganing as “the sitting upward, feet forward position”) and then sliding right back down to where they began.

They practised this till nightfall and then, very probably, went off on an illegal shinny somewhere. Hard crowd these winter thugs.

Luckily at some locations the police were able to be on site. Having tamed the now famous-in-Toronto barbecue boy, the demands on their mass presence have severely declined. In addition, other conditions have greatly relieved them of supervising many public gatherings.

For example, because of the free flow of multitudes at Costco, Canadian Tire and other big box stores, whole flocks of politicians and their aides migrating to choice vacation spots down South, and not least travellers wandering unmonitored into the country by the hundreds, Toronto police have finally been able to turn to the real threats to public health and safety. Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas at Grandmother's, overcrowded weddings — that sort of thing.

Toboggan hills and skating rinks. Toboggan toughs and shinny bandits, the menace of our COVID days.

Tobogganing, as most people know, is a sure gateway to “skiing,” and from there things get really hairy.

You get off the curled board of one “sport” and step onto the twin slats of the other, and then where do you go? You got it.

The last stop on this desperate progression is “snowboarding.” The last plateau — from there all is lost.

That's the end of the line. Take up snowboarding and there is nothing off-limits. It fuels all sorts of wild and mad activity. Don't say it above a whisper, but some snowboarders — usually just past middle age — contemplate politics.

Politics is the only other human activity that allows a person to go downhill at a comparable rate of speed. It is also the other activity where people go downhill with no purpose other than going down the hill. Over and over.

So what can be done to put a brake on “illegal tobogganing?” It's easy to point at a problem, but where's the solution?

The answer lies, I think, in Toronto Mayor John Tory's response to that other crisis the city has faced. There should be a full and comprehensive registration of all legally acquired toboggans — no certificate, no sled — and an implacable ban on all illegal toboggans. Naturally this will be accompanied by pre-ownership training courses, severe restrictions on toboggan storage, and draconian penalties for unauthorized sliding on unlicensed hills.

If you've got a toboggan problem, then go after the toboggans. It's a solution that obviously has worked in analogous areas. And it is the way to go here.

Or, there is another solution of equal efficacy. Bulldoze the hills. Level every mound and hillock, every hump and knoll. Aim for a perfectly flat earthscape in and around Toronto.

But that carries the risk of higher carbon dioxide emissions, and on that front alone I think we must all harmonize; it is not worth consideration.

Gaia first and Gaia always, that's my motto and I'm going to keep to it. Better a hundred toboggan thugs go free than a single carbon molecule imperil Mother Earth.

THE LAST STOP ON THIS DESPERATE PROGRESSION IS `SNOWBOARDING.'