Alex Reid

The British Columbian town that recently was named the “best surf town” in North America is proposing a ban on fast food restaurants.

Right now there are no fast food restaurants and Tofino town councillor Stephen Ashton wants to keep it that way.

We are very unique where you can come to this place and you don’t have a Starbucks, Tim Hortons or a McDonalds,” said Ashton.

While Ashton acknowledges that such a bylaw may conflict with provincial or federal laws, Tofino wouldn’t be the first to ban fast food restaurants. In 2008, Los Angeles city council voted 12-0 to place an one-year moratorium on new fast food restaurants in South Los Angeles, to combat obesity (where 30% of adults are obese).

Under California law, fast food restaurants are defined as establishments which have a limited menu, sell items prepared in advance or heated quickly, have no table service and serve food in disposable packaging.

Misericordia is the first hospital in Winnipeg to offer free Internet access to patients while they wait for medical attention. Patients receive the network password when they register and hose without their own computer devices can use one of two computer kiosks.

From CTV:

Professor Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University, told CTV’s Canada AM on Monday that Insite, the five-year-old safe-injection site, has not had a negative impact on its community.

“We looked at crime rates in the area surrounding Insite, and we talked to business operators, we talked to service providers, to police, to residents in the surrounding vicinity. We found, overwhelmingly, people had very positive sentiments,” Boyd said.

St. Peter’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, has dropped its ban on cellphone and BlackBerry use. Other hospitals in the city have also decided to permit them, but only in hallways, waiting rooms, and cafeterias.

The move follows the recent study findings by the Mayo Clinic that tested cellphones and PDAs from two different carriers with 192 pieces of medical equipment. The study concluded that “when cellular telephones are used in a normal way, no noticeable interference or interactions occurred with the medical devices.”

“… in a normal way”?

Ernest Gallo, of Ernest & Julio Gallo Wine, passed away yesterday, a mere three weeks after his half-brother Joe passed. It’s not all bad, he was twelve days short of his 98th birthday.

And they say wine is good for your heart.
Cheers!