TTC Chair and local City Councillor Adam Giambrone's proposal to ban parking 24-7 on Dundas Street West - south side in the Dufferin Dundas Street area - will kill Lula Lounge, Toronto's live salsa and latin music home, incubator and habitat. Customers will no longer have any place to park. And Lula draws them in from the entire GTA and beyond without the fighting and shootings that plague Clubland!
Dundas Street West is not buzzing with traffic in the evenings. There is no rationale or need to gut a neighborhood for traffic or for public transit. If Queen West has parking, why not Dundas Street West?!
Giambrone killed residential portions of Dufferin by prohibiting parking for the residents and he means to kill Dundas Street West, a delicate neighborhood in transition with a nascent arts, culture and music scene.
Lula and the Dundas West Business Improvement Association have been instrumental in cleaning up parks, chasing off drug dealers, engaging residents and businesses in mural projects, street festivals including 2009 Samba On Dundas! .
While most of the studio and slipper crowd does not move to live music, and while some of the salsa scene takes in some live music at Six Degree Tuesdays, losing incubators for live musicians affects everybody. If habitats such as Lula, where live musicians meet, experiment and perfect their craft, disappear like so much boreal forest, so will those musicians and their opportunities to connect with people, dancers.
Without Lula, there would be no Lady Son, no Cache, no SalsAfrica, no Cafe Cubano, no Juno winner Hilario Duran, no Luis Mario Ochoa, no Amanda Martinez, no rapera Telmary, no Toronto bands for Salsa on Saint Clair or the Beaches International Jazz Festival. What will the DJs play if live musicians become extinct? What will the people who go to the street festivals do if there is no live Toronto Salsa to dance to or listen to?
Politicians rely on apathy to execute their will. Silence is consent to a politician. Speak up or lose it.
Save Lula, Toronto's premiere habitat for live salsa music and save the Dundas Street West neighborhood, by doing one or more of the following: Contact Adam Giambrone directly; Contact Mayor Miller; mayor_miller@toronto.ca; 416-397-CITY(2489); Fax 416-696-3687. Adam Giambrone; councillor_giambrone@toronto.ca; 416-392-7012; Fax: 416-392-7957; Contact your own Toronto City Councillor, or turn up at City Hall's Council Chambers for the 30 September vote on Giambrone's death sentence for Lula and Dundas Street West.
Or, do the 21st century thing by signing the online petition at the link below.
