Another (American) trivia - W.C. Fields on his radio show used to always crak jokes about his son Chester. Many people were mystified because he had no kids, fortunately - until someone at the sponsoring tobacco company figured out that mentioning “Chester Fields” on their program was not not a good idea. (Lucky Strike, I think).
Back when Tims was real doughnuts, they slowly beat out a whole mess of competitors in central Canada - Country Style and such. Now they are doing it to places like Robins in the west.
More trivia - the Hortons with apostrophe is to get around Quebec language laws. Eaton’s is an english sign and therefore illegal in Quebec, Eatons is just a name and perfectly legal to post in public. Fortunately, Eaton’s took the easy way out and went bankrupt instead. Tim’s hasn’t yet, despite the rubber donuts, so they needed to drop the quote.
(True fact that Americans may not know - it is illegal to post in English in QUebec. A few years ago I went across from Ottawa to Hull; the big sign in the shop window said “Bienvenue” and the matching “Welcome” had been sliced out of the paper, leaving an obvious hole - probably on the orders of the language police. So there is no welcome for you maudit anglais in Quebec. Nor for ethniques nor monnaie.)
I don’t think the signs were actually illegal in Québec - given as McDonald’s, as a prominent example, still uses the apostrophe in their name. I can believe that people may have made complaints to the OLF, but anyone can make a complaint about anything; whether there are any actual fines laid are a whole other matter. Tim Hortons claims to have (also) dropped the apostrophe in order to have one unifying brand nationwide.
False. It is legal to post [signs] in English, Chinese, Russian, Romanian, Latin, [insert language of choice here] provided that French is predominant, either by being in a larger/more visible font, or if it’s the same size, usually on the left so that the French is read first.
The “language police” are not a police as such and really do nothing more than issue fines, but they would not have “ordered” anyone to remove English from a welcome sign in a store if “Bienvenue” was also posted, as it is not against the law to have a sign as you described. What you saw was due to the individual store owner, and you chose to make stuff up about the way the entire province operates as a result.
I won’t comment on your last two sentences, other than to say that they are offensive.
Minor correction: French must be “markedly predominant”. Can’t be the same size font; merely posting the French to the left isn’t enough, at least, under the law. The French must be twice as large.
First - if the “police” threaten you with a fine - how is that not “ordering you to remove it”? If your company name must change to meet the requirements, how is that not “ordered”? If the only way to make your point is to hire expensive lawyers, fight in court with the risk of a huge fine at the end… how is that not “ordered”? The rules are arbitrary and open to interpretation by the bureaucrats. The fact that they could force Eaton’s, one of Canada’s biggest department stores (nice jackets!) to change, but not world-corporation-sized McDonald’s, shows the extent and limitation of their hubris.
Second - If you recognize the “Monnaie et ethniques” quote, then you know the implication and who said it. Yes, I was offended.
Oh, and the hole and missing “Welcome” was apparently the same size (judging by the hole) as the “Bienvenue”, so it was probably “ordered” under threat of fine to be removed or modified. No doubt the shopkeeper cut it out to make a point. Point taken.
I won’t argue that that’s the text of law, but in many cases it’s been accepted that having French letters be twice the size of other languages isn’t practical, and there are exceptions made. Hereis an example from the Dorval airport, where the fonts are the same, but the French word is first. Here’s another sign outside the Jewish General Hospital, where “Urgence” and “Emergency” are the same size, as is the name of the hospital in blue above it. In a very prominent promotional campaign, the Habshad the word “Saisons” and “Seasons” in the same size font side-by-side (well, separated by the CH), French first.
The whole thing just isn’t nearly as insane as suggested.
Also, this is a thread about doughnuts, so if you want to continue this discussion, feel free to open another thread. I’m still craving a Boston creme.
Incidentally, following a pitched battle in the late 90s, Tim’s has taken over in a big way from the former market kings, Dunkin’ Donuts (which is good because everything at Dunkin’ is ass; it produces the only coffee I’ve ever thrown out.) There’s scarcely a Dunkin’ to be found in Montreal anymore (the only ones I can think of are the one on Wellington St. in Verdun and the ones in Lionel-Groulx and Berri metros), but Timmies are as omnipresent as everywhere else in the country.
Incidentally, where’s the famous intersection with Tims kitty-cornered from one another? Is it Moncton?
A lot of years ago, long before Al Gore invented the internet, I was in graduate school in Toronto. Like many other grads, I had a part time job driving truck.
A group of us grads/truckies used to gather at the Tim Hortons near the Toronto airport at 6:00am for breakfast donuts and bull sessions. Then we would each buy a box of donuts, a huge container of coffee, and spend the day eating them as we went on truckin’.
Heaven on a stick!
I was back in Toronto last about ten(?) years ago, and checked out Tim’s. YUK! Ptwooey! Eeeeuew!
What they sold me tasted like greased up cardboard! Nothing like they used to be in the day. Their Boston Creams??? Rat poison!
And Harveys???
Used to be the best burgers and fries in the world! No, the Universe!
Now??? Words fail me.
I was recently in Australia. I was told that about two years ago they opened a Krispy Kreams store about a mile away from where I was staying.
When they opened there was such a rush to get them, that for months they had traffic backed up all the way down the highway, and they had to bring in the police for traffic and crowd control.
Now? You could fire off a grenade in the place and not hurt anyone.
Australians evidently are not to be trifled with when it comes to donuts.
So probably the best thing to be done with the great donut controversy, is to let it sit and ripen in our memories; give us something to hold onto as we sit on the porch and reminice.
It’s noted earlier in this thread that that seems to be par for the course with Krispy Kreme. The same thing happened with outlets that opened in Ontario (huge grand opening that quickly fizzles out).
In my experience, Canadians believe they have a reflexive distrust of patriotism, but in reality they’re just as patriotic as any other people. It’s just that to them “patriotism” means “American”, so convincing themselves that it is something they don’t have is a way of positioning themselves at odds with the US. Paradoxically, it’s actually nation-building.
I’ve heard the suggestion that the fact the OQLF operates on citizen complaints (rather than a “language police”) was so it would intervene only when really needed, that is, if a francophone goes in a store and can’t understand the signs or the labels because they’re all in a foreign language, for example. But if, for example, there was a place near Val-d’Or where everyone was a Slovenian speaker, there would be no problem with them having signs in Slovenian only because nobody would be there to complain. But some citizens have taken upon themselves to act as vigilantes and complain to the OQLF about situations that don’t actually affect them. And the OQLF must investigate citizen complaints, even when no law is actually broken.
Oh, mnemosyne, you know md2000 isn’t going to start a thread in GD or the Pit where we could actually debate this whole issue. That’s just not how the man operates. So we have to do it here.
I miss being able to go to Tim Hortons at will (fortunately, they’re all over the place in Michigan). I do have a Krispy Kreme in my neighborhood in Mexico, but I really can’t stand their over-rich, glaze-on-everything donut concept. And in general, both Mexican donuts and Mexican coffee suck (the donuts I can forgive, but Mexico is a major coffee producer, and coffee’s everywhere, and its preparation still sucks).
And FWIW, I have to think that Tim’s took advantage of the Canadian love for donuts, not started it. Growing up, Sarnia was just another piece of my home town, except across the river. There was no Tim Hortons, but there were donut shops everywhere, and it was just as easy (then) and much cheaper (then) to pick up Canadian donuts as American.
Oh, for some strange reason, there’s a chain here called “Canadian Bagels.” I’ve lived in Ontario, and I never really thought of Canadian bagels as being anything special, at least in comparison to donuts.
Someone I know who went to Siam Paragon this morning to go to the bookstore there told me that three days after Krispy Kreme’s opening, they’re still lining up. He reckoned there must have been 300 people waiting to get doughnuts, with the line out the shopping center and down the street. This is just crazy.
Yes, it’s based on citizen complaints. And news articles about some poor store having to deal with the OQLF make the Montreal Gazette fun to read (I recall one a long time ago about a complaint about a pet store that we selling a parrot that only spoke English…unless that was a joke article), but usually it’s just the Office following through to see whether the complaint has merit, and I seem to recall that most of the time they either don’t, or are so minor that just pointing out that “hey, the French sign is being blocked by that stack of Coke cans” is sufficient to correct it.
Yes, but this is GQ, and politics aren’t nearly as fun as doughnuts.
And I know I just continued the hijack in this very post, and I apologize to the mods for that…I won’t do it any further.
That’s “Hamilton, Ontario, has approximately one donut shop per 300 residents.” Bancroft, Ontario, has considerably fewer (1 per 3500 residents, who are all that’s in the town).
A quick check on Google Maps and yellowpages.ca seems to suggest that there are about 70 Tim’s in Hamilton, 8 Coffee Time and 2 Country Style doughnut shops. So assuming those numbers are correct, we can say that there are at least 80 doughnut shops in Hamilton. The population of the City of Hamilton in 2006 was 504559, while the metro are is 692911. So that gives a range of one doughnut shop per 6307 to 8661 residents depending on how you measure.
There may actually be more shops; I suspect many franchises have one mailing address but multiple locations (such as 2-3 locations on a university campus operating as one store). I did a quick check and Google maps shows 12 Tims in Guelph Ontario, but only one shows up on the university campus but I know of at least 3 locations there, which puts that city in the 1 shop per ~8500 range as well (without considering other chains).
Directions to a cousin’s house in Whitby Ontario went something like this: “Take X avenue until you hit the Tims at the Esso, then turn right. Turn left at the light after the Country Style, and then right at the Coffee Time. You’ll see a real Tim’s, and then two side streets down, turn right again. We’re three houses down from the Tim’s on that road.”
Something similar happened with Singapore’s Rotiboy, which I mentioned back in post #39. Hard to describe; Rotiboy is not doughnuts, but rather this sort of baked bun. Not even any fillings. But very good. A branch opened in Bangkok’s Siam Square, and long lines formed. The number you were allowed to buy was capped, to make sure they didn’t run out and could accommodate everyone. It got to where some enterprising individuals started buying up as many as they were permiited, then resold them at a slight mark-up to others waiting in line!
But at least with Rotiboy, there was no similar product available elsewhere. Doughnuts are everywhere in Thailand, including some very premium products even right there in the same shopping center where Krispy Kreme has opened.
Rotiboy did finally get some competition. A local outfit calling itself Mr. Bun opened offering similar fare, and eventually Rotiboy, having opened one or two other branches besides the original, closed up shop completely and returned to Singapore. Mr. Bun remains but has never attracted the crowds Rotiboy did.
I hate repeating other people’s jokes and then getting called out on them by people who would actually know otherwise.
