Toronto’s Live Music Crisis

“Most of the venue closures that have lately bedevilled the local music scene stem from similar circumstances, highlighting the downside to Toronto’s cultural communities of the city’s ongoing growth and economic prosperity. In North America’s third-largest music market, venue proprietors — who, in most cases, don’t own their buildings — are suddenly hit with 300-per-cent rent increases or browbeaten out of existence by complaints of noise, congestion and insufficient parking as condos spring up on all sides.”