A disinfecting crew in hazmat suits were brought in to sanitize the Brass Rail Tavern, allowing it to reopen after staff members exposed to the employee with COVID-19 had their tests come back negative. But it still sparked much discussion in Toronto and beyond: the strip club foreshadowed what could happen with unprepared schools.
The six-figure B.O. topper
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run opened on 300 Canadian screens facilitating physical distancing, the first such rollout in five months. Its $900,000 in estimated ticket sales made it the weekend’s top grosser. Unhinged, starring Russell Crowe, took in $582,000 on 299 screens, but its studio thinks it’ll do better with angrier Americans.
Peter Nygard’s sons accuse him of setting them up to be raped by his girlfriend. Their lawsuit claims the sexual assaults, which took place 14 years apart, involved a “known sex worker.” Nygard’s lawyer has dismissed the accusation, which joins the class action from 57 women claiming sexual assaults denied by the beleaguered fashion designer.
No darning this well-worn Grit
Reports of a rift between Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau were recharged by Reuters, despite the PM recently claiming confidence in his finance minister. But they’ll be meeting to discuss their relationship. Meanwhile, the weirdly combative style of “alt-centre” Liberal supporters on Twitter has a big hole in it due to a certain celebrity sock puppet:
Richard Gwyn dead at 86. The longtime Toronto Star columnist and political author had been living with Alzheimer’s disease for about six years, which halted work on a follow-up book to a two-volume biography of John A. Macdonald. Before that, Gwyn responded to condemnation of his subject, in defence of “Canada’s First Scapegoat.”
Finally, legends at the drive-in
Orville Peck minted his new major-label status by releasing a duet with Shania Twain. The song’s music video set in a drive-in theatre led to guessing that it was a pandemic-era accommodation. But the pseudonymous masked singer clarified that he and Twain met to make “Legends Never Die” the day before the quarantines began: