We have a mayor and city council, and that means you, Kyle Rae, my councillor, which puts saving a moribund Theatre Passe Muraille ahead of of supporting one of Toronto's real tourist amenities-- restaurants.

Dining out at restaurants is one of the top three activities that attract tourists to Toronto but the Council doesn't care. They just came within a whisker of imposing a 5% city liquor tax. Think of that. I fished out a recent restaurant bill, the one that so shocked visiting Americans, and totted up the taxes. On a subtotal of $210, I paid almost $30 in taxes and another thirty with the 15% tip that added up to  $62.45 with an overall total of $273.  Now I'm facing a further 5% tax  -- because I'm sure the same councillors who won't reduce their own salaries in the current fiscal crisis will grasp at anything taxable. They can always give a little homily on the evils of drink to oil the wheels.

Even the idea of imposing another expense/tax on restaurants is obscene. Restaurants have the wobbliest of economies - everything that happens in the city has impact on them, from raising parking charges, to banning smoking in bars - to the city's unwarranted effort to ban fresh sushi.

Councillor Rae and his allies are paying $1.2 million to save Theatre Passe Muraille.  No one I know and respect has gone near Theatre Passe Muraille for atleast twenty years. 

Forty years ago in the flameout sixties, TPM had a hit called the Farm Show and actors played tractors and chickens to great acclaim. This was a major breakthrough in drama-- ranked alongside Oedipus, Tartuffe and Hamlet by local critics who must have been smoking something. Canada, by god, can think and act -- even if it's only a tractor's inner soul.  The late Sid Adilman once noted in his Toronto Star column that he could smell pot being smoked by actors in a TPM show and made national headlines, more attention than TPM received before or since. 

TPM is being saved because it's part of a small community. What about saving the larger community, Councillor Rae, the one that depends on tourism to flourish? We know theatre don't do it. Remember the $5 million the province and a business consortium lost in the production of the risible Lord of the Rings.

But our good restaurants are among the few quality amenities this city offers tourists. This city is the fifth largest in North America and yet we lag behind smaller cities like Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco in attracting tourists.

Ontario has suffered more than any other province since 2001, seeing a 50% drop in the number of international tourists  while the rest of Canada has seen only  a 24% drop.

Restaurants, the hospitality industry have been hit hard sby the fallout from 9/11, SARS, smoking bans, the loss of a hockey season, sluggish economy, rising Canadian dollar and skyrocketing gas prices  – factors which led to a persistent and dramatic drop in tourism, and less spending by local customers.

Between 2000 and 2006, Ontario restaurant industry revenues fell by an inflation-adjusted 1.8%, which represents a drop in demand of $291 million.  Sales won’t recover to 2000 levels until 2008, according to a new forecast by the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association (CRFA).

Restaurant industry pre-tax profit margins in Ontario are the lowest in the country at just 2.9% of operating revenue. 

Ontario bars (now smoking is banned) have hit a new low, reporting an average loss of 0.5% of revenue.

Real foodservice sales in Ontario are 1.8% lower than they were in 2000, compared to an 8.5% increase in the rest of Canada.

Ontario now has 17.4 foodservice establishments per 10,000 people – the third lowest concentration in Canada and ahead of only Manitoba and Nova Scotia.
(All figures are based on Statistics Canada data)

CRFA is forecasting 1.3% real growth for Ontario’s restaurant industry in 2007 and 2008.  Many restaurant and bar owners will continue to be challenged by rising costs including the new bottle deposit program and a series of minimum wage increases, starting in early 2008, which will put inflationary pressure on all wages and lead to higher payroll taxes for employers.

What I'd like to know Councillor Rae is why you aren't leading an effort to give restaurants in this city a break not a new tax. Restaurants rely on the bar to make the difference between profit and loss, that's why we pay a minimum of 100% markup. In New York, restaurants get a break on buying wine, but here, the restaurateur pays what the consumer pays. Any rise in the price of wine could well lower restaurant sales -- wine is already the breaking point for lots of diners out.

But never mind. TPM's ok. Think how many tourists will flock to the documentary on The Farm Show which celebrates TPM's fortieth anniversary.