Living For The City

I made mention yesterday of Igor, owner the infamous Toronto bicycle chop shop, finally getting arrested in connection with a bike theft. Well, when we got home from Evil Dead I got a phone call from Killen saying that he’d heard that the content’s of Igor’s “shop” were being loaded into police trucks.

We got up there a few minutes later and sure enough, there were the police, firemen and an increasing number of onlookers in front of the shop. There was one fully loaded truck pulling away when we got there, another that got filled while we stood there and 2 more waiting in the wings… Who knows how many more were filled before we got there and after we left.

The story, as I got it at the scene, was that Igor didn’t make bail and they were clearing out his shop (and 4 other storage spaces) as they were considered a fire hazard. I don’t know what the official plan for the confiscated bicycles is at this point but I was told that there would be a press release issued in the near future inviting people to claim their bicycles with the police – with some sort of proof of ownership of course.

I don’t think this will be the “end” of Igor by any stretch but needless to say, there are a lot of happy bikesters in the city right now.

UPDATE: If you’ve had your bike stolen in the last while it might be worth going down to the Central Garage, 9 Hanna Street,
on Saturday, July 19, 2008, and Sunday, July 20, 2008, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. to see if it ended up there.

Check out the police press release here