• The TD Canada Trust at 888 Meadowlands Dr., which was robbed Tuesday afternoon, seems increasingly popular with local stickup artists.
This week’s holdup at the Meadowlands branch was the first since, well, last month, when two thugs arrived with a handgun and departed with an undisclosed amount of cash.
Earlier last year, one man robbed the branch twice, on March 1, and then again on March 10.
The same industrious perp is suspected of knocking over a Bank of Montreal on March 17.
“It does happen that they will come back if they find the place nice and comfortable,” Det. Dan Simser told the Ottawa Citizen after the repeat heist.
Nobody has been hurt, but it might be time to rejig security at Meadowlands to make it a little less “comfortable” for the bank’s growing self-serve clientele — or just set up a drive-thru lane for the getaway cars.
• Metro, the big-hearted R2D2 of Ottawa newspapers, has no desire to get into a size thing with our venerable paper of record, but the Citizen has announced it will shrink by an inch next month.
Some Liberal or NDP supporters might argue the conservative-leaning daily was already narrow enough, but the reason for the smaller format is simple: It’s cheaper.
The price of newsprint has risen as ad revenues have sunk. The paper’s heavily indebted owner, Canwest Global, announced 560 job cuts in November. Lean times, lean paper.
The Citizen last week assured readers that thanks to the magic of modern layout, less is more, or at least that not much less: “Our designers have adjusted the way we put the paper together to minimize the loss of space. In most cases, there is no loss of content at all.”
• As we joylessly observe 45 days of this acrimonious transit strike, a note of reconciliation from the Oblate Partners in Mission, organizers of an ecumenical service Friday evening at St. Joseph’s Parish.
“This is a liturgy to ask for God’s mercy, to pray for healing the many broken relationships within our city due to this strike, and encourage mercy, healing, and hope in each of us,” reads the Oblates’ release.
In a slightly different spirit, Wilde’s, the gay sex shop on Bank Street, displays a sign offering free lubricant to OC Transpo drivers, and a frank, unprintable suggestion of what to do with it.
