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For decades, the stretch of Bloor between Spadina and Bathurst trod the line separating hip from seedy. Annex intelligentsia could shop for organic buckwheat cervical pillows while, next door, frat kids dripped falafel sauce on their textbooks. But with the rising cost of real estate, rent and taxes squeezing neighbourhood-oriented retail off the strip, low-fare food and drink joints have rushed in to fill the void. Cheap and dirty seems to be the order of the day now.

Accompanying the shift is an upswing in petty and sometimes violent crime. It's left more than the lefties wondering if the heart of the Annex is still a healthy place.

Graziano Marchese

Owner of Annex Live (296 Brunswick Ave.), former owner of Dooney's (where urbanist Jane Jacobs used to mastermind the defence of threatened neighbourhoods over coffee): "It's been a slow transition over the last five or 10 years, but now it's all about cheap food and cheap booze; there's little contribution to good food or culture. How many chicken-wing places do you need? It's absurd. There is no longer a butcher, a fish market, a cheese shop or a dairy here. ... Now people go to Harbord because they don't have to deal with a lot of kids outside the bars. Some nights are pretty rough."

Adam Vaughan

City councillor for Ward 20: "It's a great area, but the Brunswick House has been trucking in a 905 nightlife mentality by way of school buses and extendo-limos and it's changed the tempo of the intersection on the weekends. The Brunswick used to be a beer hall, but since the new owner took over in 2006, it's been a nightclub, offering bottle service and cheap martinis and pumping out drunk hooligans who don't leave the area as quietly as they used to. If the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario were better at pulling liquor licences, we wouldn't have this problem. But we are watching them and inspecting them, and when they trip we will get them, because they have no respect for the community they are in."

Don Watterson

Owner of Curbside Cycle (412 Bloor St. W.) for 15 years: "The tenor and tone has really changed over the last five years; it's become a destination for over-drinking. Now there's more vandalism, graffiti, fights and broken windows. I have roll-down shutters to keep my windows from being broken. I even had an artist paint a mural to make them look good. Someone tried to rip one of them off, and the other has graffiti all over it. The hardware store down the block gives me paint to blot out the graffiti around here, but it's hard to keep up. The vandals are at the gate. We need a moratorium on new bars, like on Ossington."

Tom Lee

Clic Klak Fashion Studio employee, overseeing the "store closing" sale after three years at 499 Bloor St. W.: "This used to be a retail area, but it's been converted to a socializing and eating area. Not long ago this strip and Bloor West Village were very similar, but this has turned into a nightlife area. It's not a neighbourhood-focused area any more."

Dr. Sandeep Agrawal

Associate director of the school of urban and regional planning at Ryerson University: "Zoning can only do so much. [Zoning laws] can say there will be a restaurant here, but not what kind. That's where the market takes over. What the city could do is limit the hours that alcohol can be served, either on a site-specific basis or for a whole area. ... You need to encourage more eyes on the street to make people walk here at night and feel safe doing it."

Nigel Ryce

Area resident for six years: "Two summers ago I was at home when I heard gunshots. I walked up to Bloor and Brunswick and saw a guy lying in a pool of blood in a café doorway. All the people eating and drinking on the patio of Future Bakery just carried on like this was entirely normal. It used to be the most violence you'd see around here was when two professors would argue over which NDP candidate to support, but there was a rape and a murder in the alley near my house last year. I passed two police-tape cordons last week. Now when I see cops, I assume there was another shooting or stabbing."

*****

Booze, wings, java and a little Jesus

Select storefront tally of businesses in the six blocks of Bloor between Spadina and Bathurst:

11

sushi restaurants

10

casual-dining restaurants

9

bars

7

coffee shops

5

fast-food joints

1

church