Montreal!

pretty crazy stuff in this court document by the city of westmount suing my ex-landlord

http://jugements.qc.ca/php/decision.php?liste=68811716&doc=C0F572EC5E0A350672108DC3CDBF7AC293A9FDE6E6BE5CF685FD0DCE5483ED28&page=1

[14] On October 23, 1998, Mr. Fattal wrote a letter to Ms. Joanne Poirier, Westmount’s director of urban planning.[1] He called upon Ms. Poirier to “cancel” the September court injunction and accused her of “malicious, painful and abusive activities” that wasted taxpayers’ money. Mr. Fattal stated that it was time for Ms. Poirier to end her “Gestapo style” behaviour.

[15] In the top corner of his letter, Mr. Fattal reproduced a Second World War photo of a Nazi officer, with his boot over the neck of a prostrate concentration camp prisoner. In the background, several other prisoners in striped uniforms hung from posts. Mr. Fattal signed his letter to Ms. Poirier, “Your Hostage”.

[16] Ms. Poirier was upset by the letter. Westmount’s lawyers wrote to Mr. Fattal, asking him not to communicate with Westmount officials and to direct all future correspondence to them.

[17] A further incident in the autumn of 1998 alarmed Westmount’s building inspectors. One day, Westmount’s employee, Mr. Michel Poulin, was performing an electrical inspection at the Saint Antoine building. Mr. Fattal suddenly appeared behind Mr. Poulin wearing a Saddam Hussein mask and brandishing a baseball bat. Mr. Poulin was frightened, but Mr. Fattal later called it a joke.

...

[24] Between 1999 and 2007, he faxed hundreds of pages of correspondence and photos to the City of Westmount and its employees. At times, the fax transmissions were so lengthy they choked the City’s fax machines and disrupted its communications. Often, Mr. Fattal faxed the same pages over and over again.

[25] On a number of occasions, Mr. Fattal faxed gruesome photos of himself, bare-chested and gagging. One photo showed a tortured Mr. Fattal, with bulging eyes, and an iron bar across his mouth.

[26] Mr. Fattal also wrote to Westmount employees at their homes, mailing large envelopes to them stuffed with letters of complaint, photos of a bare-chested Mr. Fattal in chains, and other offensive documents.

...

[48] In 2011, Mr. Fattal got an iPhone and discovered text messaging. Over the next two years, up until the eve of trial in February 2013, Mr. Fattal sent hundreds of text messages to Mtre. Banon, at all times of day and night, on weekends and holidays, including New Year’s Eve in 2012. In his messages Mr. Fattal repeatedly insulted Mtre. Banon, declaring that he should be ashamed to represent “gangsters” and “criminals” who were intent on ruining Mr. Fattal’s health. In one instance, Mr. Fattal attached a photo of himself and photos of several tombstones, clearly implying that Mtre. Banon and his clients wanted him in an early grave.

[49] Mtre. Banon repeatedly asked Mr. Fattal to stop communicating with him, but the messages continued unabated, sometimes at the rate of several a day.

[50] Mr. Fattal found other outlets for his anger. He created a website on which he posted derogatory remarks and photos of Mayors Marks and Trent, Mr. St. Louis and Ms. Poirier. He attached large posters to the front of his Saint Antoine building that bore similar statements and photos, as well as his website address. These posters are still on the building today. One of them identifies the building as the “Musée d’histoire d’harcèlement par Westmount”. Mr. Fattal’s building is festooned with City of Montreal flags, indicating his displeasure at being located in the municipality of Westmount.

wow

whoa. i remember reading some stuff about this guy a few years ago, but this is next level.

i haven't really been surprised by the direction mtl food trucks have gone in...
but yesterday i did see a guy wheeling a hot dog stand down the street! really! i was on my bike and didn't stop to ask wtf!

hot dog cart i mean

haha sweet, power to that dude

i sell ice cream out of a cart on the weekends for spare cash but it's technically illegal, apparently if you get a ticket the boss pays it tho

i basically agree with the vice article but i'm suspicious of the whole "poor people and immigrants" angle, given the source

just seems like concern trolling, vice dudes probably just want food trucks to be unregulated because then it'd be more "authentic"

.. And they could co-opt any "poor or immigrant" cuisine that became popular.

Or not pay $10 for food served in a truck?

idk makes sense to me

Please to point me to Montreal event listing pages (now that the mirror's gone, sadly).

I use this for concerts http://www.cheapthrills.ca/news.html

http://cultmontreal.com/events/

On a scale of 1 to 10, how brown is your water today?

*spits montreal tapwater all over computer screen*

i will likely be writing about summertime family things to do for tourism montreal in, like, May, so... stay tuned?

rrobyn did this come out?

we'll be there in about a month. got my renewed passport and confirmed our airbnb. pumped.

i just ate aubergine at kazu
lines smaller when it rains :D

we'll be there in about a month. got my renewed passport and confirmed our airbnb. pumped.

― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, May 29, 2013 5:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

where's your beebs?

Is a boil water advisory a common occurence? I am drinking minty ice tea

in Montreal it is known as brownmint glace. not sure if it is common but having to talk about it makes the mayor sound like such a sketchy landlord.

not common at all, apparently there was one in 2008 but i don't remember being aware of it

we'll be there in about a month. got my renewed passport and confirmed our airbnb. pumped.

― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, May 29, 2013 5:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

where's your beebs?

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Thursday, May 30, 2013 3:12 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in the vicinity of parc villeneuve and parc gills-lefebevre? basically a couple of blocks west of the mont-royal station

awesome. literally down the street from me! (i live just north of villeneuve)

cool!

what are your dates?

june 30 - july 6

Montreal's mayor arrested by the anti-corruption squads. Uh oh.

hey Montreal I'm going to be in you too, from the 3rd of July probably. totally suggest FAP.

also, where is cheap and good to stay?

define "cheap"

(and define "good" i guess too)

stay at brendan's, if it's available:
http://hotelcastleruins.com/

define "cheap"

if you happen to know of a hostel that is not terrible

(and define "good" i guess too)

areas of the city that are near some cool shit without being too grotty or murdery, so if I find anyone on couchsurfing.org I have half an idea where they are?

(also feel free to nominate cool shit you love about the place, or things that are on. I will expand this thread and read the others before I get there though)

http://www.logement.umontreal.ca/eng/temporaire.htm

oh merci mille fois

neighbourhoods:

you want
"the plateau mont-royal"
"little/petite italie"
"mile end"

avoid:

"downtown"
"ville st laurent"
"NDG" (ndg is nice but not the best for tourists)
"st henri" (ditto)
laval/lachine/lasalle/south shore/west island

consider:
Old Montreal - super touristy, a little far from the realer/fun stuff, but pretty

def stay away from downtown - common mistake

xpost: although most of those seem to be defunct, at least internet-wise. except the university one that's femmes seulement. but good start for leads apart from hostel sites

ta sean & slocki

almost got offended re: avoid St Henri but then I saw the reason why and realized it was totally true

Are there advantages to moving to St-Henri? I live in the Plateau and trying to find an apartment that isn't crumbling is getting me down. Plus I'm tired of students, fixies, and tourists.

I love living in St. Henri, but a lot of my friends also live between 1-3 blocks away from me so I have that bias.

Apartments are cheaper, and often nicer (in my experience) -- windows built after the great war, even floors, etc. Too many places in the Plateau at my rent level are just absolute holes.

There's less "to do" but where I live, the metro is a 3-minute walk. And Place St. H metro is only one stop away from the "main strip" of Metro stops. Even if there's not much "to do" it means that you can get almost anywhere, at almost any time (I'm only about a 15-20 minute walk from Atwater metro, so even night buses aren't the hugest problem, as long as I can get one there). It also makes getting to work easier because I'm no longer relying on busses at 7am on a winter Tuesday.

I also fell in with a group of locals with whom I play baseball every Sunday in the summer, and I'd rather do that than eat brunch anyway.

The biggest pain is that it is pretty tough to get to the plateau/mile end/little italy/parc ex/etc from St.H, but to be honest, I've kind of stopped going anyway... I'm increasingly becoming a "hang out at a buddy's house" dude and there are all sorts of buddies in the Hen.

There are still students but far fewer. There are still fixies but they're avoidable. There are NO tourists because who would visit St. Henri? And there's the canal, which, in the summer, is an A+ place to drink in public.

Also, Verdun is pretty accessible, which I've also learned lately has a shockingly awesome amount of stuff in it.

Verdun is coming along nicely. I lived there 2 years and how much it got better while I was there was fun to watch.
That being said, the inevitable and slow gentrification is sad, Verdun was the only place that positively reminded me of the Plateau in the mid 90s, which was a little before it became the bobo paradise it is today.

St Henri is my favorite neighborhood in the city! If only for the canal! I would move there if I didn't already owned something great in Petite Patrie.

Anyone been to Chihuly's expo at the MBAM? I haven't but I would recommend it to anyone visiting Montreal. That and the Centre Canadien d'Architecture.

i've lived in st henri for 3 years and am moving on july 1st to lil italy. i think everything will said about it is true, to varying degrees (apartments aren't that nice imo). worst thing about the neighborhood u should be prepared for is there's nothing to do, nowhere nice to buy cheap groceries, very few good places to eat out. all that shit has gotten to me. i have mixed feelings about gentrification in the neighborhood, since a lot of the places that are now "yuppie" businesses were previously abandoned buildings, but it is a very stark contrast, between like those old quebecois diners and, like, designer pastry shop, with nothing really in the middle ground between the two.

also will there's a nightbus from atwater that goes along st jacques to lansdowne, usually timed pretty well with 356 for a connection

love little italy

Little Italy and environs is really great. A variety of cheap groceries are on the doorstep, there are a few places to drink (e.g. the inestimable Vices et Versa), and a ton of places to eat (neighbourhood is so thriving nobody even considers resorting to the tired molotovbait Italian restos on St-Laurent). If you include "the western parts of Rosemont" and Parc Ex and "the area around the [Jean-Talon] station" I have eaten things including pljeskavica (Serbian burger! Real one!), four or five Salvadorean places, the best hipster BBQ in the city, all the Viet and Indian places, Santa Barbara, Alep (big and little), etc. etc. I'm probably forgetting so many things, but there's a ton of great fast food type options as well...

What you miss is some of the great residential streets like you get in Plateau and (I imagine) St-Henri, or the natural features of either. The "built" aspects of Little Italy and environs are an eyesore.

That may be true of St Laurent and neighbouring streets, but just a little further into Rosemont are some of the nicest residential streets in the city, imo. Just as nice as the plateau, but often in better shape.

Love both Alep!

Yeah the Aleps are dope

def agree w/ flopson re: the restaurants and especially the groceries. i try to buy groceries near work on the way home, otherwise it's the shitty iga for me. at least in the summer/fall my work does one of those weekly produce things. Gotta disagree on the apt quality though, some of them are definitely holes yes but I would say among my pals there's like a 50/50 split of nice places vs. not so nice places (as compared to about 0/100 for my Plateau friends and myself when I lived there). If you look long enough you'll find a nice place (especially in the stretch btwn home depot and tobacco lofts, below the highway and above notre dame -- it seems less easy once you get west of courcelle).

st henri is kinda ugly though, doesn't really have that over little italy.

is royale really the best bbq in the city? moreso than black strap? i've only eaten at strap 2ce and royale 1ce and... I can't choose. yet. but also i was with someone who didn't eat red meat wheni went to royale so i didn't get to have the brisket, which i am still sour about!