Toronto’s Zombie Apocalypse not horror film but very real

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Welcome to Zombieland.

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But this is no movie being filmed in Toronto or about the city.

This is Toronto. It’s a nonfiction story. These fellow Torontonians swaying around in a perpetual high state or crouched head down with fentanyl in their systems are not acting.

Some call it the fentanyl fold – or fenty fold. Others describe it as the fentanyl lean or slump. The tragedy of people so messed up on opioids that they can’t even stand up straight is very real. And these horrors are out of control across the city. Not just downtown but in neighbhourhoods south, east, west, north and midtown.

There is a small piece of graffiti that has been painted into a walkway on Bay Street that simply says “blight.” This is an accurate statement. But it’s more than a blight. It’s dangerous. Not just for the drug users but for anybody within two metres of them.

With photographer Ernest Doroszuk at the Bay St. entrance to Union Station, near Scotiabank Arena, what was on display Friday afternoon was disturbing. Open drug use does not properly explain it. People were lighting pipes and smoking drugs as families walked by while trying to avoid them.

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“It’s fentanyl, crack or crystal meth,” said one homeless addict named Chris.

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He said his drug of choice is meth and explained a story of divorce, estrangement from two children, injuries from a construction career and hopelessness. He’s not the only one like that. There are hundreds in similar situations – men and women. You can see the toll the drugs and homelessness has taken on them as people.

It’s difficult to look at – especially when you see something like the one man I witnessed without shoes or socks and what appears to be infected spots on his legs. Each person has their own story. Chris said he would still rather be on the street than a shelter, which is why he has stayed outside for 10 years.

Seemed like a nice person, but his situation is not good.

Orgy of narcotics use

Nor is it nice what people with families have to walk through on a sidewalk in a downtown underpass that was teeming with what looked like an orgy of narcotics use. People with pipes lighting up and blowing their smoke in the air for anybody walking by to inhale.

Soon after, people can be seen tripping around due to the effects of the drugs. As my colleague Brian Lilley captured up on Bloor St., there were people standing in the middle of the street higher than kites, not knowing where they are let alone what they are doing.

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At Dawes Rd. and Danforth Ave., a homeless shelter has led to syringes being left next to the defecation in people’s potted plants in their backyards.

“It’s not safe to go out at night and we can’t take their picture to show the police because they look right in our windows,” said one resident, who didn’t want to be identified.

They have complained to Mayor Olivia Chow and her mayoral rival, Councillor Brad Bradford, as well as police, but no one seems to be able to get a handle on it.

‘Too many residents no longer feel safe’

“Under Mayor Chow, Toronto has reached a point where too many residents no longer feel safe in their own neighbourhoods. Open drug use, discarded needles and deteriorating public spaces have become an unacceptable reality in too many parts of our city. She has allowed these conditions to become the status quo,” Bradford told the Toronto Sun.

But this stuff went on before Chow was mayor, before John Tory was mayor, before Rob Ford was mayor, and before David Miller was mayor. However, it has now festered to a point where Toronto is starting to look like hell on earth.

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Full credit to Toronto Police officers who responded to Union Station on Friday and moved the zombie crowd along – at least for a while.

Sooner or later leaders are going to have to get a handle on it. They don’t seem to be in a hurry or even interested. They leave it to corporate security to deal with who have to call police to help them thanks to hard drug addicts having more power than they have.

If police were to give out tickets or lay charges, they don’t have enough handcuffs for the amount of alleged offenders. No one can expect security or a couple of cops on the beat to fix this mess. But what Toronto can expect is for the mayor, Premier Doug Ford and the Prime Minister Mark Carney to draw a line in the sand and say no more Toronto Zombie apocalypse.

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Chow has not yet responded to a request for comment. If she does, the one thing I would ask her is how it is tolerable for a city in its main tourism, transit and business areas to let drug addicts and dealers overtake the whole area – not with their wall of despair but the smoke that comes from whatever they are smoking?

They spent tens of millions on the FIFA World Cup games but don’t seem to have a solution for this.

“I believe we can be compassionate without accepting this as normal,” said Bradford. “We need to restore confidence that Toronto’s neighbourhoods are safe, clean and welcoming places to live, work and raise a family.”

It’s pathetic what is allowed to go on here.

“I know we can do better,” said Bradford.

Toronto, which now looks like there’s a zombie movie being filmed in most areas of the city, can’t do any worse.

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