Greek restaurant riots
It started when a soldier, identified as Pte. Cluderay, got into a scuffle with a Greek employee at the White City Cafe at Yonge and College, on Aug. 1, 1918. Cluderay’s night ended with a blow to the head and a public drunkenness charge, but the matter didn’t sit well with many of Toronto’s war veterans, a growing and increasingly activist demographic. They felt men who had fought for the Empire should be given first crack at jobs when they came home, and took umbrage when they saw “enemy aliens” working peacefully in Canada — and earning more than them to boot.
The next night about 400 veterans and sympathizers returned to the café, demolishing it. “The leaders were in khaki, their crutches and missing limbs silent testimony to their service in France,” wrote Ian Hugh Maclean Miller.
They then moved on to another White City location on Bloor St., then to the Star Lunch on Yonge. Crowds stood by, watching the mayhem, as did the police, who didn’t intervene until the mob moved to the Marathon Lunch at Yonge and Cumberland. Reinforcements arrived, arrested soldiers and blocked the street. The mob then headed back south, ransacking more restaurants and dragging non-British owners into the street to salute the Union Jack.
By the time the streets were finally cleared around 2 a.m., 15 local restaurants had been attacked, with damage totalling more than $40,000. Fifteen men were arrested, including six veterans. The city was in shock. A Toronto Star editorial decried the “anarchy” and said that “aliens are as much entitled to the safeguards of the law as others.” The Star warned the leading veterans’ group, the Great War Veterans Association, to quash further violence.
The plea seemed to fall on deaf ears. The next night, a crowd of 2,000 led by veterans on crutches, marched on No. 1 Police Station demanding the release of the arrested men. A night of clashes between police and marchers ensued. The tension didn’t let up for days.
Finally, on Aug. 7, Mayor Tommy Church announced he would read the Riot Act from City Hall. A crowd of 5,000 showed up to object. In the end, Church backed down, and instead read a proclamation banning loitering and gatherings of three or more people in the streets.
That was enough to restore calm. Several men who were arrested soon had their charges dismissed. A subsequent police inquiry found that police were guilty “in a sense” of failing to protect property at the height of the riots.