Yorkville is home to Toronto’s beautiful people, uber chic hotels, very expensive restaurants, and designer boutiques with a Winners thrown in for good measure. This exclusive neighbourhood also attracts beautiful people wanna bes, people watchers, tourists, and locals who have sussed out reasonable restaurants, cafes, and shops and go to the cinema at the Cumberland. And many of us eat meat on the street that we purchase from the local hot dog vendors. If the city has its way, meat on the street may disappear from view in Yorkville and that would be a pity.

Why can’t 5-star hotels peacefully co-exist with hot dog vendors? Just because you can afford to stay in a 5-star hotel doesn’t mean that you don’t just love to chow down on a dog once in a while. Bloor Street is going to be renovated with granite sidewalks that will be widened and decorated with planters. The master plan is to convert this strip of Bloor Street into Toronto’s version of New York City’s Fifth Avenue. The powers that be don’t believe that hot dog vendors belong on this new exclusive side walk. In fact they are not guaranteeing that 11 hot dog vendors along the strip will be allowed to return.

I have never heard or read about 1 person who complained about the presence of a hot dog vendor in any neighbourhood, including Yorkville. Why doesn’t the city deal with the pan handling that is rampant in Yorkville and does offend locals and tourists alike? Instead of deciding that people along the newly renovated Bloor Street in Yorkville don’t want the hot dog vendors there, why not allow the 11 hot dog vendors to return? If the people don’t want them there then the hot dog vendors won’t make a living and they will move on. If they make a living then the message is clear. People in Toronto’s Yorkville do eat hot dogs.