🗞️ District 5 voting guide

Good morning Halifax,

When I was a teen, you stole tiny amounts of booze from each of your parents’ liquor bottles and then mixed it with Fruitopia to form a vomit-inducing swamp juice. 

But for the sophisticated youth of today, a popular method for getting a quick high is via whipped cream charger—formally known as Galaxy Gas—which I’m assuming parents don’t just have hidden away in the cabinet of the fancy room. 

A whipped cream charger is a nitrous oxide-filled, stainless-steel cartridge that—upon dispensing—transforms cream into a whipped state. But without a food ingredient in the canister, dispensing the charger emits just the nitrous oxide that apparently teens are sucking back to get high as balls.

Inhaling quick blasts of pure nitrous oxide essentially replaces your oxygen intake—which can lead to loss of consciousness, heart attack, feeling ill, loss of coordination, headaches, nausea, vomiting and seizures. Sounds fun… (she says, dripping with sarcasm).

An expert from Cornell University says nitrous oxide misuse, or doing whippets “as older adults may call it” (she said it, not me), isn’t new. But like most trends, it’s making a comeback, so parents beware if you’re teens takes a sudden and intense interest in pastry cheffing.

The more you know!

– Julie

🌡️ Traffic & Weather

Today: ☀️ 20°

Tomorrow: 🌤️ 19°

Next Day: 🌤️ 19°

7-day forecast 

🚗 Driving, biking or busing today? Check out the current traffic conditions and ongoing road closures.

💨 Here is Halifax’s Air Quality Index and the smoke report.

CITY

District 5 voting guide: Choosing between Sam Austin and Mike McCluskey

One of the fastest-growing places in the Halifax Regional Municipality is downtown Dartmouth. The Darkside councillors like to joke that Dartmouth’s unofficial animal should be the crane. Not the bird, but the ones littering the skyline building high-density residential housing around the Dartmouth entrance to the Macdonald Bridge. 

After the most recent electoral district boundary review, the new District 5 is more downtown Dartmouth than ever, so it is only fitting that two of Dartmouth’s prodigal sons are competing in the October 19 election to represent their beloved city-within-a-city on Halifax’s regional council.

The Coast’s Matt Stickland guides you through how to choose between two political heavyweights—Sam Austin and Mike McCluskey—in District 5.

🤔 Need To Know

🚨 Halifax police say four people are believed to be involved in several “high-value” thefts in the area in recent days—the group distracts employees while making off with goods.

⚖️ Relatives of a 60-year-old man who took his own life in a Nova Scotia jail after long periods of confinement in his cell have launched a lawsuit against the province.

🗳️ Seven of Halifax’s mayoral candidates—almost half of all those running—took part in a debate on Saturday—the main topics included homelessness, food insecurity and accessibility.

SPONSORED BY DEVOUR! THE FOOD FILM FEST

Lights. Cutlery. Action: 14th Annual Devour! The Food Film Fest Brings The New Faces of Food and Ethical Eating To The Screen and Plate

The 14th annual Devour! The Food Film Fest brings world-class changemakers to explore immigrants' role in food culture and our progress in ethical eating to Wolfville, Nova Scotia, on October 23-27, 2024. Legendary filmmaker and producer Trudie Styler will be at this year’s show screening her film “Posso Entrare? An Ode to Naples”. Game-changing chefs, including Angel Ramirez Betancourt, one of the world’s top ten pastry chefs, and Nova Scotian Timothy Charles, executive chef of Fogo Island Inn, which just received Three Key recognition from the MICHELIN Guide, and others will bring the screen to life on the plate. Enjoy 50+ films, Gala dinners, culinary workshops and community events. Learn more at devourfest.com

ARTS + CULTURE

Polaris finalists NOBRO ready to take on the Halifax Urban Folk Festival

It’s hard to find a band more passionately liberating than NOBRO. 

The all-femme punk band from Montreal has risen to prominence throughout the country on the strength of their anthemic debut album, Set Your Pussy Free, released in October 2023. This landed the four-piece a spot on the Polaris Music Prize shortlist for 2024.

Next, they’ll be taking their attitude-driven rock to the Halifax Urban Folk Festival, performing at The Marquee on Oct. 4 at 7:30pm. 

“I feel like Halifax is just like, there’s so much,” says vocalist, bassist and founding member Kathryn McCaughey. “Everyone’s just so nice, so friendly. Really excited to get greeted with that Maritime hospitality.”

The Coast’s Brendyn Creamer speaks with McCaughey about NOBRO’s decade-long journey to releasing a full-length album.

🗞️ In Other News

🏫 Bystander intervention—a training program offered at all post-secondary institutions in the province—is expanding to high schools in response to recommendations made in the Mass Casualty Commission.

❤️ Halifax coffee shop Alteregos held a celebration of life for three of its long-time patrons, who were “part of the fabric” of Gottingen Street.

🎓 Tighter restrictions for international students at Canadian universities are worrying industry experts—they’re warning that new limitations could damage Canada's reputation as an attractive place to study and live.

SPONSORED BY LIVE ART DANCE

Live Art Dance and Prismatic Arts Festival present Kaha:wi Dance Theatre's "Homelands"!

"Homelands" is a dance honouring our kinship connection to the natural world, its patterns, energies, and life forces. A multimedia dreamscape creates the landscape: water, textures with three women dancers embody the elemental.

Don’t miss Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, or any of the Live Art Dance season. Get your tickets today!

SPONSORED BY SHAFTESBURY

Murdoch Mysteries in Concert comes to Halifax

Join Symphony Nova Scotia for an evening of mystery and music at Murdoch Mysteries in Concert with star host Thomas Craig (Inspector Brackenreid).

Ticket holders are invited to purchase an exclusive post-show Meet & Greet with Thomas Craig!

Don’t miss this at Rebecca Cohn Auditorium on September 27 and 28.

🗓️ Things To Do

Looking for something to do this week? Check out these Coast picks:

🗓 Canada's Storytellers—Roxana Spicer: The book is intimate and exhaustively researched, vividly conversational and shot through with Agnes Spicer's irrepressible, fiery personality. It is a true labour of love as well as a triumph of blending personal biography with sweeping history. | Sep 24 |  6pm | Free

🗓 Graeme Patterson—Strange Birds: The sculptures in this innovative show are also the settings for both a projected animation and a virtual reality environment. | Sep 6-Nov 10

🗓The Looking Glass Ensemble—The Music Room Chamber Players Series: Formed in Newfoundland, this performance collective will expand your concert experience with a fresh and engaging performance bringing together music and dance. | Sep 25 |  7:30pm | $35

🗓Matt Minglewood—Live at the Shore Club: Minglewood is now backed by a new young band that has been able to keep up with his high-energy stage performance. Expect to hear tunes from his new album Fly Like Desperados, as well as all of his anthems that shaped the Nova Scotia music scene in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. | Sep 27 |  9:30pm | $45

Have an event to share? Let us know at [email protected].

⚓️ What’s In The Harbour

🛳️➡️ The Atlantic Sun container ship arrives from Liverpool at 5:20am and leaves for New York at 5pm.

🛳️➡️ The Norwegian Sky cruise ship arrives in Halifax at 8am and leaves for Canadian seas at 5pm.

🛳️➡️ The Zuiderdam cruise ship arrives in Halifax at 10am and leaves for Canadian seas at 6pm.

🛳️➡️ The Silver Shadow cruise ship arrives in Halifax at 8am and leaves for Canadian seas at 7pm.

➡️ The CB Pacific oil tanker leaves Halifax for Albany at 9:30pm.

🛳️➡️ The NYK Meteor container ship arrives in Halifax from Antwerp at 10:20am and leaves for Port Everglades at 10pm.

🛳️➡️ The Tropic Lissette container ship arrives in Halifax from Philipsburg at 6:15am and leaves for West Palm Beach at 11pm.

🍴 Where To Eat & Drink

🍝 Calling all pasta lovers! The Seafood Pappardelle will be on the menu starting this week at Agricola Street Brasserie.

🐔 Check out The Reuban at CHKN CHOP: fried chicken, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, dill pickles and Thousand Island dressing on marble rye.

👀 In Case You Missed It

🔪 Any good misogynist will tell you that a woman’s place is in the kitchen. But that exact same misogynist will tell you that a professional kitchen is no place for a woman. It’s one of the more perplexing sexist paradoxes. Moira Murray is proving that a woman's place is actually wherever the hell she wants it to be. The Coast’s Julie Lawrence caught up with Murray to talk about her career so far, being a woman in a professional kitchen, life at Peacock Wine Bar and the whole Top Chef Canada experience.

🏛️ At City Hall, council chambers are getting renovated to become more accessible, so Halifax’s Community Planning and Economic Development Standing Committee met virtually on Thursday Sep. 19. The meeting was dominated by RadStorm’s plan to buy their 2177 Gottingen Street building, and their request for Halifax’s municipal government to pitch in with some funding. For more you can read Matt Stickland’s full report over on The Coast’s website.

That’s it!

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