{"id":3396,"date":"2008-07-24T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2008-07-24T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2008\/07\/24\/the-igor-effect\/"},"modified":"2008-07-24T12:33:40","modified_gmt":"2008-07-24T16:33:40","slug":"the-igor-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/24\/the-igor-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"The Igor effect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2268\/2027654155_a84b5d8b6c.jpg\" height=\"347\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A couple of summers ago, I did a <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2006\/08\/09\/bike-theft-under-police-noses\/\">post about a bike being stolen from in front of the police HQ<\/a>. I said that the police ought to make more effort about bike theft. The post got a lot of comments, and over the next two summers, it kept getting more comments from people whose bikes were stolen, looking for advice about what to do. And the advice was often the same &#8211; &#8220;Check Igor&#8217;s.&#8221; Igor Kenk&#8217;s infamous bike shop across from Trinity Bellwood Park seemed to be known to everyone as the place to go to find a just-stolen bike, and several people posted or told me anecdotes about recovering their stolen bike there.<\/p>\n<p>I was helping with developing the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation&#8217;s (TCAT) election platform that summer, and the discussion inspired us to include an item calling for a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.torontocat.ca\/main\/platform\/protect\/task_force\">police strategy to seriously tackle bike theft<\/a>. Given the fact that bike theft is a mostly local affair, with known outlets and traceable serial numbers, we felt that a little effort by the police could make a big difference.<\/p>\n<p>It turns out, we were right.<\/p>\n<p>A couple of weeks ago, a <em>Toronto Sun<\/em> reporter named Brett Clarkson got in touch with me because he was doing a <a href=\"http:\/\/cnews.canoe.ca\/CNEWS\/Crime\/2008\/07\/13\/6144331-sun.html\">story about bike theft<\/a> and he was interested in TCAT&#8217;s idea. We talked about a lot of issues, including Igor (whom he had interviewed). We wondered, as I had sometimes wondered with others, why Igor was never brought to trial, despite his seemingly obvious role as a purchaser of stolen bikes. We wondered if perhaps it was because at least he was a known quantity, and both police and victims knew where to go if a bike was stolen.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Coincidentally (or perhaps the <em>Sun<\/em> had heard something), the police actually did start a anti-bike-theft program the next week. And the result was much more dramatic than anyone, including I suspect they, anticipated. First, undercover police watching an unrelated bait bike saw (allegedly &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/home.php?#\/event.php?eid=19297543389\">the trial is still to come<\/a>) Igor specifically direct someone to steal a different bike, and then buy it from them. <a href=\"http:\/\/cnews.canoe.ca\/CNEWS\/Crime\/2008\/07\/17\/pf-6182146.html\">Catching him red-handed<\/a>, they finally had no choice but to arrest and charge him.<\/p>\n<p>But then came the really dramatic turn of events &#8212; police discovered he had <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/article\/464768\">several warehouses full of bikes around the city<\/a>. Which means it wasn&#8217;t simply a case of go to Igor&#8217;s and you could <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/article\/463753\">find your stolen bike<\/a> if he had it &#8212; he had caches where he could spirit bikes away. There are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/News\/GTA\/article\/466028\">thousands of bikes there<\/a>, and already it&#8217;s been shown that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/article\/463683\">some of them are stolen<\/a> (anyone who has had a bike stolen in recent years should <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiketo.ca\/node\/2369\">check out the police collection<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>This is a real opportunity, if the police and the cycling community seize it, to make a long-term dent in bike theft in Toronto. There will always be some bike theft, of course. But before Igor&#8217;s arrest it seems to have been easy for casual thieves to make a quick turnover on a stolen bike. Now that what was apparently an easy outlet is gone, they might not be able to unload a bike as quickly or safely, which means they might not bother picking off less valuable bikes. If police keep up the pressure, and if cyclists systematically register their bikes, it might be possible to make bike theft and bike fencing complicated, inconvenient, and risky, so that only the hard-core thieves will put in the effort &#8212; which would reduce the number of bikes stolen every year.<\/p>\n<p>One thing that would help would be for all bike shops to be able to do automatic bike registration with police when a bike is purchased. I&#8217;m sure it would be possible if the shops and the police got together and worked out a system. There might also be ways to get shops that buy and sell second-hand bikes to track and check serial numbers more rigorously, perhaps as part of an enhanced registration system. The city could maybe even create a specific licence for shops to buy and sell used bikes, which could be withdrawn if they are found to be lax about stolen bikes. There are various possibilities, but I think there must be some way to tighten up the trade in used bikes to make it more difficult to unload a stolen one.<\/p>\n<p>The other interesting aspect of this story is the new interest in bike issues of the <em>Sun<\/em> and the police, who haven&#8217;t previously paid them much attention. It coincides with, for example, the <em>Globe and Mail<\/em> doing a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/servlet\/story\/RTGAM.20080718.bike19\/BNStory\/lifeStyle\/\">spread on cycling fashion<\/a>. It would be easy to scorn this interest, but I find it very encouraging. I wonder if cycling has reached a &#8220;tipping point&#8221; at which it is suddenly becoming a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/servlet\/story\/RTGAM.20080719.wnoticed19\/BNStory\/lifeStyle\/\">mainstream<\/a> way to get around town &#8212; the result perhaps of a combination of high gas prices and a newly energized and organized cycling community. It might take some adaptation from a bike community used to a certain outsider status, but the benefits in terms of general awareness and safety, not to mention a cleaner and healthier city, are well worth it. (There&#8217;s a thoughtful <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiketo.ca\/node\/2348\">post on ibiketo.ca about new cyclists<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><em>photo by Sam Javanrouh\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of summers ago, I did a post about a bike being stolen from in front of the police HQ. I said that the police ought to make more effort about bike theft. The post got a lot of comments, and over the next two summers, it kept getting more comments from people whose<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/24\/the-igor-effect\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;The Igor effect&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[9806,313,1056,9791,505,663,4321,314,19,3253,1642],"class_list":["post-3396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","tag-brett-clarkson","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-high-gas-prices","tag-igor-kenk","tag-reporter","tag-sam-javanrouh","tag-tackle","tag-the-globe-and-mail","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-coalition-for-active-transportation","tag-toronto-sun"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Igor effect - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/24\/the-igor-effect\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Igor effect - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A couple of summers ago, I did a post about a bike being stolen from in front of the police HQ. I said that the police ought to make more effort about bike theft. 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He has also written articles for NOW magazine and the uTOpia books. He was co-chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee 2007-2010, was one of the founders of the Toronto Coalition (now Centre) for Active Transportation, and is a co-founder of Walk Toronto. 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