Take the Lane

Igor Kenk to spend four more months in jail

Toronto's king of the bicycle thieves is going to spend another four months in jail, after pleading guilty today in a Toronto court.

Igor Kenk, who has been in custody since his arrest in July 2008, pleaded guilty to possessing 10 stolen bicycles (out of the several thousand seized by police) and also pleaded guilty to six drug possession charges. While he was sentenced to 30 months in jail, he gets a break for serving time while awaiting trial and will serve just another four more months.

The Canadian Press report on the case says that the 50-year-old Kenk got a break from the judge, who said that the public -- that would be all you poor slobs whose bikes were stolen -- benefited from Kenk's plea bargain, because bike registration has increased significantly (!!!). This, presumably, is in Toronto only, which actually has a police-department-operated bicycle registration program, unlike the rest of the country, where most police departments simply advise bicycle owners to keep the serial number of their bike written down somewhere safe.

The judge also noted that Kenk's bicycle repair business is no longer in operation, as though that was a mitigating factor somehow. I didn't really think that the bicycle repair business had all that much to do with the bicycle stealing business. Kind of like saying a jewel thief is no longer a threat because his jewelry store has closed.

Child-caregiver takes cycling to heart

I was still eating breakfast when first one, then another, then another three kids went zipping along the sidewalk past my window on their bicycles, followed by their caregiver.

It's March break around here, and the weather is particularly decent. My neighbour, who looks after vars. young ones for the working-parent crowd, informed her parent-clients last week that she intended to take them cycling regularly through this week, and would they please show up on Monday with a bicycle and helmet for each child.

To their credit (I have seen parents drop off kids at other houses with barely enough clothes to keep warm), the parent-clients did just that. So instead of sitting around the house all day or playing road hockey, these kids are cycling to the arena, to the community centre, to the library branch.

How cool is that?

PST removed from $1,000 and under bicycles

If you're thinking about buying a new bicycle (and who isn't) under $1,000, you might want to put that purchase on hold until Dec. 1.
That's when the provincial sales tax on bikes and bike helmets comes off.
The Liberals made it one of their election promises, and delivered on it today at a media event in Toronto.
Premier Dalton McGuinty said the idea is to get parents and children cycling more.
The removal of the PST will save about $80 on a $1,000 bike, with the total cost to the treasury, says the  Liberals, to be about $25 million a year. (About half a million bikes are sold in Ontario each year, and according to the McGuinty math, the under-$1,000 price range would account for about 300,000 bikes annually.)
Announcing the tax break to begin on Dec. 1 doesn't mesh well with the traditional bike-buying season, but it might be an excuse to put a bike under someone's Christmas tree.
Hey, who needs an excuse?