Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti calls Parkdale “a pedophile district”

Ward 7 city councillor Giorgio Mammoliti is known for making extremely strange statements to the media (a habit he has at times blamed on a brain condition), but earlier today he entered some new, even weirder territory—and may have alienated an entire neighbourhood in the process.

Ahead of an Exhibition Place board of governors consultation about electronic dance music events on the Ex grounds, Mammoliti issued a bizarre press release in which he says that nearby Parkdale “is home to one of the highest concentrations of registered sex offenders, including pedophiles, living in the City of Toronto.” At one point he dispenses with the qualifiers and calls Parkdale “a pedophile district.” This is a reprise of the won’t-someone-think-of-the-children logic that led the Exhibition Place board to ban EDM events in April. The ban was later overturned by city council after it became apparent that the main beneficiary was Muzik nightclub, an Exhibition Place party venue that was a favourite of Rob Ford’s, pre-rehab.

Parkdale–High Park councillor Gord Perks has already retaliated with a press release of his own, in which he calls Mammoliti’s statement an “awful slur.” Also noteworthy: last month, a Global News analysis found that Parkdale’s concentration of sex offenders, while relatively high, is not “the highest.”