'Hortons looking to bring Tim Bits to Afghanistan

operation Timbit

Canadian soldiers serving in Afghanistan may soon be able to get their morning coffee and doughnut at a Tim Hortons coffee shop. The company, co-founded in Hamilton in 1964 by the famous NHL hockey player and local police officer Roy Joyce, is in talks with the military about setting up a store to serve soldiers on the front line of the war on terror in Kandahar.

General Rick Hillier, head of the Canadian Armed Forces, stepped up the negotiations yesterday by offering to personally take Tim Hortons president and CEO Paul House of Stoney Creek to visit soldiers in Afghanistan to help convince him the idea has merit. Hillier says soldiers pester him about when they might see one of the coffee shops open at the Kandahar base and he believes it would boost morale to have a Tim Hortons in the Afghan city that gave birth to the radically militant Taliban regime.

American troops serving in Kandahar have their own Subway, Pizza Hut and Burger King outlets.

Captain Tim Fletcher of the 31 Canadian Brigade Group in Hamilton, which oversees the operation of 14 army units in southwestern Ontario, said a Tim Hortons coffee shop in Kandahar would be well received by the troops. more from the Captain

"Ah, I love the smell of a 'fruit explosion' muffin in the Kandahar morning!"

If that story gave you the warm and fuzzies, than this cookie caper will make you sick. Not in the good way, like when as a kid you downed a dozen of moms home baked goodies and then layed on the couch groaning in a sugar induced happy coma. No, this story will leave you foaming at the mouth like the time your dog ate all your Christmas chocolates and pooped thunder for a week.

The defendant, Kathleen Rockingham, accused of illegal baking


The plantiff, the Hamilton cookie police









Exhibit A, the cookie










AND NOW THE CASE OF 'THE HALF BAKED COOKIE LAW' (cue 'The Peoples Court' music)

Mary Whitwell won't be baking for the Binbrook Fair this fall for the first time in nearly 60 years. The cookie police have already given her a warning. The city's public health inspectors cracked down on the 82-year-old's church table at last year's event. Her homemade cookies -- chocolate, spice and raisin -- aren't allowed at special events anymore. It's a matter of public safety.

City officials recently sent a notice to all church groups to clarify the rules around bake sales. It's fine for homemade goods to be sold at churches, service clubs or fraternal organizations because of an exemption in the health regulations. But if a group takes part in a special event away from their facility, like a festival, fair or carnival, the food must be made in an inspected kitchen -- and grandma's doesn't count.

"It's just to lower incidents of food poisoning," explained George Rice of the city's public health food safety program.

"We don't know what their kitchens are like because we haven't inspected them.

A public health official inspecting the event took exception to the homemade cookies being sold for a dollar with coffee at Knox Presbyterian Church booth. Local Councillor Dave Mitchell got a call and intervened, suggesting officials should educate first and enforce next year. He understands the rules, but wishes the city would use common sense to measure the risk to public health.

The Whitwell family has been part of the local church for six generations and every one of them has made sweets for the bake sales. Kathleen Rockingham, 85, has been making her famous shortbread -- 10 to 15 dozen a time -- for the sale in her own kitchen for years.

"I haven't had anyone die from one," she said chuckling. "This is absolutely ridiculous. Haven't they got anything else to do down at City Hall?"

Apparently not, I guess busting a cookie sale that brings in much needed revenue for this organization, so it can provide the services it does for the community is what the 'cookie monsters' at city hall concern themselves with today.

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Later,
Kenaz