Was that bar shooting anywhere near you, Mr Smith?

Sorry, that should have been to you, not "all"

Yeah it's about a half hour by bus from us, near a mall we frequent and across the street from a resto we dined at once. I was surprised it made the international news, but we don't get many mass shootings unlike our neighbors to the south.

edit: Police drew a possibly spurious connection to an ongoing tow truck war being played out across the GTA.

One of the odd things is 3 armed perps, 12 wounded but no life-threatening injuries. 

Very odd.

The story continues:

Two charged in alleged murder plot at Pickering pub hours after Scarborough Piper Arms shooting

 

I see they're trying to connect it to the "tow-truck" wars that you mentioned. The names are South East Asian with Gokilan being Tamil in origin. Is there some kind of race thing going on?

Anyway, it's all very interesting. One of the UK's biggest bus companies is Stagecoach, which was originally a Scottish company and is still based in Perth, about 50 K north of Edinburgh. That company is big and respectable now but in the early years, not so much. They started as a small vehicle hire company specialising in coaches, minibuses, and leisure vehicles. At this point, late 70s, their activities in suppressing competition was legendary (in the area) and sounds much like the tow-truck wars. Funny how some of these firms get started.

 

Yeah it is. I was just reading about how the Trump family fortune got it's start with a restaurant-brothel in the Yukon (Canada) gold rush.

I forgot how long this has been going on.

https://archive.ph/O4zet

Interesting article. I liked the remark that criminal gangs aren't always old established societies like the Mafia, and that reminded me of the "ice cream wars" in Glasgow which came to a head with the death of six people in an arson attack. Those convicted of murder were subsequently acquitted, years later, and in spite of their protests (and that they were probably framed by local police) they had almost certainly committed other crimes warranting long sentences.

I also noted the comment that the article was disingenuous for failing to point out that Toronto police appeared to be involved in the Tow Truck Wars, some even running tow trucks themselves.

It's an interesting scene. The tow truck drivers are a mixture of bikers, ex-cons, ex-cops, and (probably) some legitimate operators. Or so I've read. They are notorious for ambushing hapless motorists who have broken down on the highway, and towing their vehicle to a repair shop to be held for ransom.  I don't know that they're even licensed, or what they'd have to do to lose one. There are probably a lot of 'freelance' operators regardless. Given the insane volume of traffic on the highway, they are unlikely to be under any sort of meaningful oversight, and only attract the attention of the wrong police by chance.