Hundreds of employees spilled out onto the sidewalk today after three floors
of an office tower in downtown Toronto were evacuated.
The exodus at Scotiabank was triggered after a golf promotional package, containing a sample of bear repellant spray, was delivered to the 16th floor of complex at 44 King St. West.
The package was opened and a small amount of bear repellant was accidentally released, setting off a security alert, said Joe Konecny, a spokesperson for Scotiabank.
The spray can of repellent was sealed in an air tight container and the offices ventilated.
[...]
Midday traffic ground to a halt as a one-block section of the busy street in the heart of the financial district from Yonge to Bay Sts. was sealed off for almost two hours.
Street cars were backed up for blocks.
I didn't know that bears golfed, and of course there's no word in the Star piece about whether the golfing bears were Muslim or not. Too concerned with goddamned political correctness to care about The Truth, I guess!
Religion of Peace MY ASS!
We'll just have to wait for the Blogging Tories to sort this one out for us.
Toronto, where they close down the city for alittle bit of bear spray or 2 inches of snow.
ReplyDeleteDid they call in the Army this time as well.
You know, troops.
In our cities,
With cans of Glade
Freshening the air.
In Canada
What have Muslims got to do with it,
ReplyDeleteBear spray might not be too useful at the big TO golf courses, but out West they insist on building golf courses in bear territory and bears commonly (and likely rightly) presume this is thoughtful landscaping for their basking hobbies.
ReplyDeleteMutterings about being held up at a hole tend to die off when the reason looks over at the whiner and yawns. I expect it's the same outside cities down East.
As for office evacuations for minor reasons...
Office tower evacuations occur often for suspicious odors. Sometimes a few floors only. Sometimes the whole building. Got my exercise a few times this year already (potential 33 floors descent). Even if it's designated afterwards as a non-hazard, the evacuation isn't wasted as streamlining practise for a real disaster evacuation. You don't say, oh, it's nothing important. When the alarms sound, you treat it as a valid emergency and vacate. If you know the true cause of the alarm, you report it to the experts in charge and let them handle it.
Training on the logistics of how to safely and calmly evacuate hundreds to thousands of people takes all the practise you can get. The results are relatively little inconvenience to traffic and important to a lot of companies doing business in office towers.
Those who might try...
(and after Tim Horton's, it's too easy to imagine)(Did I mention the local efforts to bring terrists into play over a postal depot 'overseas source' package a few blocks from me that while giving hazmat teams scenario practise turned out to be noxious cough syrup?)
...to contort this into "bear spray is just a multicultural socialist cover up for a terrist chemical attack on scotiabank" need to go play a relaxing round of golf. Might I recommend Kananaskis country, when the berries are ripe.