A Bit More Detail

A new mini-doc by Made By Other People (you might remember them from their short film about Craven Road) hopes to change that perception, or at least give the changing neighbourhood a look at what the store means to its regulars. Filmed last winter, it makes a strong case for controlling the pace of gentrification in Little India, lest it force out businesses important to the wider community.

"It's a staple of the neighbourhood," says director Kire Paputts. "It's kind of like a hub for a lot of people in the community who don't necessarily fit in with a lot of what's happening with gentrification."

"There's few spots on the strip that still kind of cater to the working class, and that's just one of them. The thing with Coffee Time is there used to be four of them in the immediate neighbourhood and now there's only two left ... I wanted to document the place and people that went there before it's gone."

Vern, the store's window cleaner and family member to two of its staff, echoes that sentiment in the film. "In this community, somebody living on social assistance that's getting roughly around $600 a month, how can they afford to be going to some of the higher-end coffee shops, let alone just barely being able to afford to come here," he says.

Vern also captures the essence of the shop with this doozy of a quote:

"A friend of mine come in [to the coffee shop,] he was drunk. A guy and his girlfriend were arguing, he got involved because he shoved her, and next thing I know he's getting beat by with a chair from the coffee shop. But yeah, this area is really nice."

Little India on a Monday afternoon is a ghost town. Granted, it's the off-season. Plus, on days like today, when it feels like -15°C and the wind is blowing furiously across Gerrard Street East, I can understand why the sidewalks aren't overflowing with pedestrian traffic. But the storefront windows covered with newspapers and scattering of "For Lease" signs, several within one block west of Coxwell Ave., give the impression that something is amiss.

After speaking with several restaurant owners along the bazaar, the consensus seems to be that competition outside of Toronto--such as in Brampton and Mississauga--is sucking up the business Gerrard's Indian Bazaar once enjoyed exclusively.

It's very bad now," one of the owners of Moti Mahal tells me as we chat by the buffet of his nearly empty restaurant. "Even the weekends aren't good. Everyone is struggling." The restaurant has been a fixture in Little India for several decades, undergoing a remodel about five years ago. "Now there is just so much competition; in Malton, in Rexdale, Mississauga. Now we have to rely a lot on tourists." He says he's noticed the change happen over the past few years, and at its worst over the past seven or eight months. "I'm hoping more festivals or something can revive the area."

I get a similar impression talking to the men at Nitya, the restaurant that moved into the space previously occupied by Skylark Restaurant. "There's an Indian bazaar in Brampton, an Indian bazaar in Mississauga, an Indian bazaar in Markham. So people can find places to shop closer to their homes." Though Nitya has been around for under a year, its owner is an area veteran, and these men say there's been a marked different in recent years. "There's been fewer people," one says. "Especially when people hear in the news that the DVP is under construction, the Lakeshore is under construction, it becomes very difficult to come out here, so they stay in their communities. Plus parking is bad and they don't want to risk getting a ticket."