Police believe Toronto Humber Yacht Club fire likely intentional
· Toronto Sun
Toronto Police say they are investigating the recent fire at the Toronto Humber Yacht Club as an arson.
A three-alarm fire early on Wednesday morning tore through the clubhouse, which is on the Humber River south of Bloor St. W, near Old Mill station.
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Shannon Eames, a media relations officer with the TPS, confirmed Thursday that police are investigating a suspected arson but said no more information could be provided at this time.
Toronto Fire Services directed all questions about the investigation to police.
Firefighters said Wednesday that no injuries were reported. The boats on the property are believed to be undamaged.
In a statement Wednesday evening, club vice-commodore Wilson DaSilva had said if the fire was deliberately set, “we hope that any responsible parties are brought to justice.”
“We know that people disagreed with our club,” DaSilva’s statement said. City council recently voted to boot the boaters from the property, and the club served city hall with notice of a legal action the day before the fire.
That notice was for the club’s application for an “emergency stay” that would allow it to remain on the property while the court considered the matter, DaSilva’s statement said.
DaSilva did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Ordered out
The boating club — by all accounts a more blue-collar outfit than its name would imply — had been due to leave the property as of Thursday.
Emergency responders arrived at the clubhouse around 4:50 a.m. on Wednesday morning. The blaze was largely put out by 6:30 a.m., the Sunpreviously reported .
Nearly 100 firefighters and 27 fire trucks were reportedly brought in to battle the blaze.
Jason Sills, who lives near the boating club and led a community effort to get city hall to end the club’s lease, told the Toronto Sun on Wednesday that the blaze was “unfortunate” as the club building “would have been a nice outdoor education centre.”
Toronto city council voted last month to end the club’s lease, citing violations of that lease and environmental concerns. That proved contentious as a handful of councillors, first at a committee meeting then in the council chambers, pressed city bureaucrats for specifics on how that decision had been made.
While a report early this year said the boaters needed to vacate purely because of environmental concerns, the local councillor, Amber Morley, steered the conversation to repeated violations of the lease. (Morley’s office did not respond to a request for comment. DaSilva has disputed Morley’s comments and denied that the lease violations were serious.)
While urging council to effectively end the club’s 70-year history at March’s meeting , Morley denied the process was unfair and suggested the club chose not to save itself.
“If you show good faith and demonstrate an ability and a willingness to address these compliance issues,” Morley said, “we will open up a further conversation, despite the environmental challenges, despite the flood risk and those location issues, the difficulty with enforcement on the river and the unique nature of this location.”