The city clamps down on the Parkdale party scene with a new Queen West restaurant cap

Over the last five years, the stretch of Queen West between Dufferin and Roncesvalles, once known for drugs and prostitution, has become a lively late-night destination with new bars and restaurants drawing crowds from all over the city. The proliferation of booze and trendy food has earned the strip the nickname “Partydale” and with it the ire of city councillor Gord Perks, who’s been lobbying for over a year to put a cap on new restaurants, which he blames for rising noise levels, carousing drunks and unruly swarms of young people “who wear hip clothes”. Last Friday, city council responded with a by-law that divides the Queen West strip into quadrants and restricts new restaurants from opening in any quarter where they’ll account for more than one in four businesses. The move, which comes on the heels of similar initiatives in Kensington Market and Trinity Bellwoods, has provoked predictably indignant responses with some critics even grumbling about a war on hipsters. [The Globe and Mail]