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The Coast | News, events, restaurants, concerts and Burger Week for Halifax, Nova Scotia
Home of the Best of Halifax Reader's Choice Awards, the award-winning independent newspaper covers the Halifax news, politics, events, concerts, movies, restaurants, and nightlife scene.
I seen u out in front of tim hortons in kentville it was the most amazing sight i have ever seen with your pajama pants fluttering in the wind. you just finished hacking on a cigarette when i seen you make eye contact. i tipped my fedora at you but looked away. i could feel…
[Image-1] To the lovely waitress who, when I ordered a coffee and told her that I was meeting my ex, left the most adorable and delicious heart-shaped cookie next to my mug – it is the small things that make a day. You made mine. Thank you —Feeling much better
[Image-1] I’d like to extend a big “thank you” to whoever has been claiming our tiny front yard on Edward and Coburg as their dog’s daily outhouse all winter. It was weird to repeatedly wake up to footprints leading from the sidewalk to our windows, but now that the snow is melting it all makes…
[Image-1] To the three gentleman who let me interrupt their conversation and coffee while they were walking up Prince Street today: Thank you all so much for taking the time to give my car a push off the ice curb that I was hopelessly stuck on. You did not hesitate to help a complete stranger…
To the people who nearly got run over by the Taxi Mini-Van crossing Queen street on Spring Garden at around 5:15 on Friday March 13th because he didn’t feel it was necessary to wait for you to finish crossing even though you were already half way across the street, I got his license number and…
Sarah Metherall and Graham Caswell bought their first house in March 2014. The old home in Old Dartmouth fell within their budget, but was way bigger than they needed—and conveniently zoned R2 for rental property—so they opted to turn the basement into an income property. With no experience with renovations, the couple “took a leap…
There is no wonder the whole post-secondary education system is in such a mess. Universities are mostly run by upper-middle-class conservative, unimaginative, boring white people who embody the complete opposite of the humanity that universities were founded upon. It’s a fucking joke. It is a publicly funded safe-haven for sexual assault, sexual violence, racism, classism,…
If you’re a “nice guy” to a girl up until you realize she doesn’t want to date you, then go on about how she’s a cold shrew that friendzoned you and how no girls date “nice guys,” like nah mate. Girls do date nice guys. You just aren’t a nice guy. You’re a passive-aggressive beta with internalized…
I fell for you hard and fast; the sparkle in your eyes lit my face a glow every time I saw you. I never told you that I thought you were the sexiest man I ever met, and that watching you chop the limbs off a tree just about sent me into overdrive. Your hands…
[Image-1] Halifax has become a mecca for hipster high-end overly-priced restaurants, coffee shops and stores. This shop local trend in my opinion is a load of crap. I think it crosses a line when the businesses are “owned” by young hip folk, but are actually backed by developers, which in turn will gentrify that area…
Z, I’ve known you for a few years now, without ever really knowing you. We keep going to the same events, and meeting at the Saturday market, but not so often as to have really made good friends. I think you’re amazing and beautiful, and yet mysterious to me. Maybe I never asked the right…
What made you specialize in condos? I believe in the downtown. I like to be in walking distance of stuff, and I like to be in the action to a certain degree—whether or not I’m participating it’s just nice to be there. But, I think the city needs to have more focus on the downtown…
Vlad Kovalik and Jelsi Mynott are the pair behind minimalistos. The Halifax-handmade terrariums use recycled window glass to form prisms, teardrops, pyramids and other shapes for planting in.The Flower Shop, 1887 Granville Street and minimalistos.com Cast artful shadows with Luxi Studio’s welded steel Lomhara Pendant. Designed by Halifax goldsmith and metalworker Alisha Boyd, it’s handcrafted,…
As my mortgage broker, what will you take care of? Putting a complimentary rate hold in place while you look for the right home. I work with the very best realtors in the business and I’ll connect you with the perfect professional to help you buy, at no cost to you. Walking you through the…
I’m looking to sell my house. Is there ever a “good” time to put it on the market? According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the average time on market in the greater Halifax area in January 2015 is 104 days. With this said, if you plan to be in your new home within…
What made you want to start your own plumbing company? Sherri Lee: We started Small Jobs Plumbing because despite eight years of experience, Tammy wasn’t making the money she felt she deserved. As the only female plumber at her former place of employment, she was the lowest paid, despite having seniority over many of her…
“Don’t you want to build me a tiny house?” Dawn Higgins said it half-jokingly to her friend, woodworker and solar design enthusiast James Constable, at a birthday party in the summer of 2013. The former owner of Mahone Bay’s bookstore/cafe, The Biscuit Eater, had just returned home after a year of travelling and she was…
Ask Elaine Horne and Juan Duarte for their best home renovation advice and these are the first things they’ll tell you: plan well ahead and be patient. And at this stage in their own home reno, with the finish line in sight, it’s pretty safe to say they’re total pros at both. The couple bought…
It all began with a couple of bunk houses. Halifax architect Nicholas Fudge was already designing beautiful residential and commercial buildings from his own firm when his friend Steve Chiasson approached him with an idea. He wanted two bunk houses for his cottage and thought it’d be cool to have them pre-fabricated, and delivered to…
“My husband and I love to cook. It is something we have shared together for the past nine years, so when we designed the kitchen it was with two cooks in mind.” What makes this room your favourite? “Our kitchen is wide open to the other rooms on this floor of the house, but still…
Because I work from home this is one of the only private places I have. Because of the dark colour, and that it’s not that large of a room, it’s a nice place to nest in. What makes this room your favourite? “It’s got 10-foot ceilings, hardwood floors, original mouldings. It’s not a particularly large…
“This room was what sold us on the house.” What makes this room your favourite? “It’s very much the hub of the house for us. It’s where we sit and have our morning coffee, it’s where we share time together and just talk,” says Basquill. “It’s a bright space that gets lots of sun and…
Name: Maureen Court Age: 53 Spotted: Queen Street Wearing: (all second-hand) coat, vintage Issey Miyake; cashmere scarf; vest, 70s vintage suede; floral dress, Free People; boots, Blundstones How would you describe your style? Eclectic layering of as many natural fibres as I can wear. How do you maintain your sense of style in the winter? I actually…
dear fellow south enders, snow on the ground is not an excuse to leave your dog’s crap on the street. I have a dog. I pick up after him. Why would I do that you ask? Snow or no snow – shit is still shit – and no one likes to have shit all over…
[Image-1] To all the staff & bus drivers at easter seals: In the little time I spent repairing the water damage to your building I couldn’t help but be inspired by the care and patience you showed your clients. So many people with disabilities are excluded from many of the things we all take for…
[Image-1] Night Magic Fashions, a longtime pillar of Halifax retail, has unlaced its last corset downtown. The store’s entrance at 1711 Barrington Street has been locked for several days now, and window displays lay barren. Messages left for owner Pamela Theriault weren’t returned, but the company’s second location at 334 Herring Cove Road seems to…
[Image-1] Oh, Februshitty. Look what you’ve done to our fair city with your piles of snow and sheets of ice. Tensions run high as we mumble about beet juice and quibble over public versus private snow removal services. And so far, March isn’t cutting us much slack either. With crews working around the clock to…
[Image-1] Hey Mr. 34 Driver, you know, bus 998 driving Scotia Square on Wednesday at 5pm-ish. Why do you hate your job so much? I don’t care that you’re cranky and have been dick to everyone boarding the past 3 days I’ve been on your bus. I don’t care how you yelled at the nice…
‘Tis the season, mothersnackers. From now until whenever this thing is over, your Coast-style March Madness bracket is in full swing. This year’s iteration of March Madness—chips versus pop—may have been dreamed up during the 3pm peak office snacking hour, and it may prompt a whole lot of unplanned trips to Joe Thomeh’s, but one…
[Image-1] One of the problems isolated at Halifax Fire and Emergency’s operational review last week was a scarcity of volunteer firefighters in some of the municipalities rural areas. Currently there are 459 volunteer firefighters across the entire HRM, with roughly 22 percent of those in the urban core. The fire department has been trying to…
[Image-1] Seriously?? Smoking on hospital grounds – especially a children’s and women’s hospital?? Peeling off the “no smoking” signs that are posted everywhere? Are you so incapacitated by your poisoned lungs that you can’t walk the 50 feet to get off the property? Or you think hundreds of cigarette butts decorating every surface, snow bank,…
Dear general population, the material used to construct our streets is asphalt. It is pronounced ASS-FAULT, not ash-fault. Take a good look at the spelling. When you say it wrong it makes you seem like you don’t know how to read. Saying ash-fault would only be acceptable if you are indeed illiterate. —Lover of the…
[Image-1] to the wonderful cyclist this morning who i witnessed biking down robie as i sat lazily on the 80, i admire your courage in biking that street in any season but especially today when it is still icy in places and the snow decreases the shoulder of the road quite a bit. i choose…
[Image-1] Thanks to the throng of party pals who paid for one room but took up the whole hallway at a downtown hotel on March 7th. You dressed remarkably well for whatever the occasion was and said so yourselves in the elevator when referring to the loser of a security guard who asked you to…
[Image-1] To the rancid bag of dicks who sped your van down my lane of traffic because yours was blocked off by parked cars, only to stop in front of me and not move when you (obviously) couldn’t go further- fuck you. Fuck you for giggling with your buddy beside you as I waited in…
Bitch #1 – To the zit-laden juice-injecting morons who think it’s cool to snap selfies in front of the mirrors in the gym change rooms: Can you not read the signs that say “the use of cameras or other image capturing devices in the change rooms is prohibited”?? Since you are obviously too stupid to…
[Image-1] In a national gold medal match a few weeks ago, a badminton player earned a red card when he told the umpire—a petite gray-haired woman—to “keep track of the fucking score.” Yes, the sport can get more intense than a birdie going ping, leaving welts on faces and tearing skin from knees. But at…
When Cyclesmith and the Halifax Cycle Gallery said goodbye to Quinpool Road last year, opportunity knocked hard for Paul Rogers and Alex Dardanne-Tremblay. Both longtime fixtures in local bike repair—you might recognize Rogers from Long Todd’s Neighbourhood Bike Shop and Dardanne-Tremblay from Alleycat’s Bike Shop—together they’ll open Long Alley Bicycles at 6164 Quinpool Road, unit…
It takes a special kind of person to keep biking through a Halifax winter. “If you’re not really experienced and not really confident, you will probably die.” Related Stories
[Image-1] Urban renewal isn’t an easy fight. Just ask the authors of Small Business & The City: The Transformative Potential of Small-Scale Entrepreneurships. Journalist Matt Semansky is one of the three writers behind the new book, which examines how Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax stimulate local businesses and foster growth. A former Coast writer with experience…
[Image-1] From what I know, all my friends will try to settle here rather than going home. —Deric Johnson, graduate student Nova Scotia is home to young folks from foreign lands who came for their post-secondary education and stayed after graduation. But not nearly enough are willing or able to remain here. This province could…
“It all started with a wrestling belt,” says Danny Baldwin, owner of Halifax Vintage Arcade in his corner store, Daily Sweets (2860 Oxford Street). Two years ago, he traded his WWF belt on Kijiji for a videogame, which turned into a pinball machine, which turned into a small business. Now he’s one of a few…
[Image-1] In 2014, the McNeil government commissioned Laurel Broten, a former Ontario MPP, to review Nova Scotia’s taxes. Her review, entitled Charting a Path for Growth and completed late in 2014, made many recommendations including the removal of the POS rebate of the provincial portion of the HST on books. When the HST was introduced…
[Image-1] Halifax will join cities across the country on Saturday to protest a bill giving Canada’s intelligence agency sweeping surveillance powers. A broad coalition of citizens and advocacy organizations are concerned the federal government’s Anti-Terrorism Act will create a secret police force and impinge on democratic dissent. Simultaneous demonstrations are planned in cities across Canada…
The relationships you have with your college dormmates can go one of a few of ways—the classic (and often unintentional) post-grad fade-away, the hollow “we really should get together sometime,” or the unbreakable bond that only geography gets in the way of. For Queen’s alumni Angus Campbell, Josh Counsil and Doug Kehoe, it was the…
All your favourites are back in the year’s first tentpole sequel! In the two-hour cross-canon thrill ride The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, you’ve got Iron Man chilling with Shredder at the club, Wonder Woman going #yolo with Catwoman (sexual tension: not invisible) in the country, and Thor putting his hammer to good use rebuilding…
What is the role of the association in a nutshell? The association does two things: we try to promote Nova Scotia craft beer, build the industry and market, collaboratively. We also act as a unified voice for craft beer producers, both provincially and federally. When and why was the association established? There was a loose…
The sunset beams in a kind of aqueous way this time of year, hitting the house and slowly dripping down the walls. And the earlier-than-usual glow of late August’s pre-dusk has a kind of sad Technicolor movie hue to it. The living room can look like it’s front row to a dimming sun’s last gasp…
Q When I was 15, I had a three-month-long sexual relationship with a 32-year-old woman. She was a friend of the family, and my parents were going through a divorce. I stayed with her for the summer, and she initiated a sexual relationship. Looking back, I can see that she had been grooming me. We…
Friday the 13th just got lucky for Halifax’s literati. Irish-Canadian writer, Emma Donoghue, author of Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter and most famously, Room, is in town to take part in Saint Mary’s annual Cyril Byrne Lecture. Donoghue, who has been publishing books since the 1990s, became a household name in 2010 when Room was released…
With a voice full of longing and a producer/husband who’s the best pedal steel player around, Christina Martin pointedly sidesteps the option of classic country singer. Dale Murray plays straight-up rock guitar and solos tastefully on a number of tracks, particularly “I’ve Got a Gun.” Here, Martin asserts a menacing defense against a bothersome suitor:…
“How could you not want to understand the world?” That question, asked by an aging, questing artist named Dianne, is a central one to The Cave Painter, Don Hannah’s one-woman show about art, religion, love, loss and growing old. The atheist, bohemian Dianne (played by Jenny Munday) is facing life alone after her fundamentalist Christian…
“The show is inspired by some work Emily Davidson and I did last year about the 1,600 people who were displaced when the Cogswell Interchange and Scotia Square were built. I think a lot about the folks who were displaced in relation to my relationship to the changing face of Halifax. I believe there’s an…
When Halifax intermedia artist Rebecca Baxter began designing and building sound machines, she had no idea that within a year, she’d be scoring Eraserhead with The Flaming Lips for a private David Lynch party. She also didn’t realize that bands and artists like Holy Fuck, Miley Cyrus, Buck 65, Mike O’Neill, Panos or Moby would…
Nova Scotia’s only Cicerone, Angeline MacLennan, lays down the basics laws of pairing with favorite local beer styles and restaurant favorites. Basic principles for beer pairing Most beer styles are four ingredients: water, malted barley, yeast and hops. It is the interplay and ratio of the four basic beer ingredients, and the techniques used to…
[Image-1] “A line was crossed, from our perspective.” —Phil McNulty, executive fire officer It’s been a week now since city council finally got around to debating Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency’s operational review of services. Several hours of discussion were spent flaying chief Doug Trussler’s substantial plans to close three urban fire stations and four…
“A lot of people don’t actually know this, but the word ‘symposium’ in ancient Greek actually means drinking party,” says Alex McLean of Zuppa Theatre Co. And it’s a party they have planned for the last two week of March. Zuppa’s Pop-Up Love Party is a contemporary interpretation of Plato’s philosophical text, Symposium, which focuses…
Tatabrew’s Dreadnought Dark IPA. Because it’s DOPECAKES. —Pam Crouse, Ladies Beer League board member The beer I’m drinking the most of lately is Rockbottom’s Loyalist E.S.B. It strikes the right balance between English hops and pale malt. —Jake Saunders, brewmaster at Rockbottom Brewpub Currently obsessed with India session ale—In Session—it’s a sessionable, flavourful beer. —Brian…
If you’ve heard whispers of a new brewery opening in Dartmouth, I’m here to confirm that delicious rumour. Spindrift Brewing Company aims to sample its wares at May’s Craft Beer Full House, and hit shelves by July. Partners Andrew Bell and Andy Armstrong are tight-lipped, yet eager to share. “This has been in the works…
This round’s on us. Fill up your snifter with the stories behind Spindrift, Unfiltered and Wrought Iron— the city’s three new breweries—Bad Apple’s very good cause, a peek at a home brewer’s basement set up, the lowdown on the Craft Brewers Association, a friendly game of name that glass and much more. Bottoms up! Greg…
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Pisces (Feb 19 – Mar 20) In the fairytale The Ugly Duckling, the young hero suffers from a peculiar case of mistaken identity. He believes that he is a duck. All of his problems stem from this erroneous idea. By duck standards, he is a homely mess. He gets taunted and abused by…
Greg Nash has left his mark on just about every microbrewery and brewpub in the province. So while it’s no surprise Nova Scotia’s undisputed king of hops is finally opening his own brewery, it’s pretty damn exciting. “It’s been something I’ve been trying to do for, like, 12 years,” says Nash over an IPA. “I…
This round’s on us. Fill up your snifter with the stories behind Spindrift, Unfiltered and Wrought Iron— the city’s three new breweries—Bad Apple’s very good cause, a peek at a home brewer’s basement set up, the lowdown on the Craft Brewers Association, a friendly game of name that glass and much more. Bottoms up! Greg…
Rob Shortt is a mad scientist in his basement laboratory in Dartmouth. His experiments consist of mixing up small batches of craft beer to enjoy after work, or with his club of fellow homebrewers, the Brewnosers. The homebrew pastime is serious for Shortt. He has invested time and at least a few thousand dollars, not…
“When people say, ‘I don’t like beer’ I always say, ‘You just don’t know you like beer,'” says Angeline MacLennan. She, on the other hand, always knew she was into it—whether making her own brews or knocking back somebody else’s. With two young kiddies at home, she’s been on-and-off of drinking over the past few…
I’m walkin’ (and fallin’) here I’m writing with one finger, left hand, because I broke my right wrist last week. I was returning home from the ice on the sidewalks protest, because I’d been walking those sidewalks for weeks. Slush got me in the end (“Why isn’t this city more pedestrian-friendly?,” Feature by Erica Butler,…
Charity isn’t a new concept for Jeff Saunders and wife Kari Smith of Somerset’s Bad Apple Brewhouse. Last year, about 80 percent of the microbrewery’s proceeds went to the Halifax Nova Scotia Down Syndrome Society. In late December 2013, Saunders and Smith’s lives were deeply changed. Their six-month-old son was diagnosed with Mosaic Down syndrome,…
