Toronto Church of Scientology | ?m | 8s

AFAIK the Scientologist-sponsored evisceration of the original building is not going ahead. The current owner loves how it looks and wants to maintain that.
AFAIK, it’s owned by the church. A while back I posted an article about it being sold to the church for $2 by a parishioner.
 
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For some reason, the boarded up front door was sitting open this morning.
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There's a Happy Science joint on The Queensway out here in Etobichoke. I had thought it was a Scientology rebranding exercise, didn't realize it was a new, perkier competitor for your hard-earned cult dollar.

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There's a Happy Science joint on The Queensway out here in Etobichoke. I had thought it was a Scientology rebranding exercise, didn't realize it was a new, perkier competitor for your hard-earned cult dollar.
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Nevermind the science part, they don't look so happy to me - https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Happy_Science
Maybe it is time for TTC to revisit their ad policies.

AoD
 
I don't know if they still do this but when I would drink across the street at the Duke of Gloucester I would peer down from an open window and they would have someone sitting on a chair facing the sidewalk peddling...their wares...I suppose. Usually a man in a short-sleeve white shirt and tie. And very early in the mornings I used to see teams sent daily to remove graffiti and posters from the boarded up windows.

Fun librarian fact: the church regularly sends out to academic libraries - unprompted and unsolicited - entire vacuum-sealed sets of all of Hubbard's works, both the actual sci-fi novels and the "other" stuff. I'd have to wade through the whole thing, contact profs in the English department to see which of the actual novels they wanted to keep and have us catalog, then pulp the rest. Fun times. It's how they would gin their numbers for best-seller lists.
 
I don't know if they still do this but when I would drink across the street at the Duke of Gloucester I would peer down from an open window and they would have someone sitting on a chair facing the sidewalk peddling...their wares...I suppose. Usually a man in a short-sleeve white shirt and tie. And very early in the mornings I used to see teams sent daily to remove graffiti and posters from the boarded up windows.
I pass by there quite often; I haven't seen an E-Meter table set up in years.

In reality, I'm willing to bet the Canadian arm of the church is probably close to bankruptcy. Their numbers have been shrinking on the Canadian census, there've been numerous exposés over the past few years, they only have 12 "churches" left in the entirety of Canada, and that's including the four "missions". They own several high-profile/high-value properties, like this one and the La Patrie building in Montreal, but have left them languishing in states of disrepair waiting to turn them into "Ideal Org"s (their term for flagship buildings). The church themselves however does not fund the renovation/building of Ideal Orgs. They find a sucker whale parishioner who wants to put up the entirety of the money; which means seeking out millionaires who want to join the church.

They apparently don't even pay employees of the church anything close to a "wage", but rather get paid a share of donations to the church itself. And donations aren't enough to pay anyone anything close to minimum wage.


The last church they opened was in 2013, and that just a renovated single-level building in an industrial park in Cambridge. Their website is still hyping the grand opening of the Quebec City "Ideal Org", and that was in 2010.

They owe back taxes on several of their properties (last I heard, they still owed on this one), and were at risk of losing the beautiful La Patrie building in Montreal. They've owned the building since 2007 and it's been vacant since; it's a heritage property that's not being maintained, and continues to rack up taxes that no one seems interested in paying down. The city will claim it sooner or later; but they'll stall it as long as possible like they are here. Here they keep filing new building permits for renovations and then never following through.

The city just needs to put an end to the constant stalling and take over the property. It's an eyesore that's keeping property values down in a fast-growing area of town. Personally speaking, I'd rather the city take it over and turn it into a community centre or public school—both needed with the growth in the area— rather than tear it down for yet another condo.
 

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