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The 20 worst smells in Toronto

Like any city, Toronto is home to a wonderful range of smells - good and bad.  There's nothing like a hot summer today to elevate bad smells to a whole new intolerable level.  For every pocket of the city that smells like something you'd like to bottle - the strong scent of cookies on O'Connor Drive near the Kraft cookie factory and bubble gum around the Oak Leaf Confections plant on Comstock Road come to mind - there are notorious foul smelling areas like the abattoir near King and Bathurst or the Nitta Gelatin plant near Bloor and Landsdowne. 

The abattoir was there before that area of Toronto was residential.  Their zoning is therefore grandfathered.  And for everyone else who thinks the smell is from the slaughtered hogs, it isn't.  It's the manure from the living ones who are awaiting their fate. 

Fourthed.  At least with sewage and slaughterhouses the queeziness goes away once the smell goes away.  Be even a little sensitive to strong perfumy smells and a lush can ruin your afternoon with a powerful headache

I do believe the abattoir on Niagara was there long before any of the condos.  Perhaps the condo dwellers should do a little more fact checking on the 'hood before signing on the dotted line from plans in some condo office ...

When I was younger I worked at the Sobeys across from the Humber Treatment Plant.  It was the worst in the summer time heat, made the whole area smell rancid.  When I go visit my parents, it's like a pungent reminder that I've entered Etobicoke. 

"Mcdonalds vent coming out of union station on bay street." 
ha ha ha YES
I love how idiots stand and sit out there in the FULL GODDAMN MACDONALD'S VENT FLOW smoking their butts.  They don't even realize they stink heading back to their cubicles. 

There are still butchers/slaughter houses in the area; but every time I pass Keele/St. Clair -- it smells.  Maybe it's in the ground forever, maybe the stench is in my sub-conscious.. but it smells! :-) 

The Stockyards at Keele and St. Clair Avenue West most certainly are not gone.  There is still a stretch of them on Glen Scarlett Road.  When I worked in that area I used to cut through a recreation trail just north of them to get to the streetcar.  The smell isn't just the animal feces and flesh, it's also the ammonia used to clean the killing floors.  In the winter the vented ammonia gas turns back into a liquid when it hits the cold air and it rains down on you. 

I'd also like to give a stinky shout out to Kipling Avenue and Horner Avenue and our good friends at National Silicates. 

And to the comments about City Hall going after smells -- they don't care.  I'm familiar with both the stockyards and National Silicates because I used to work in municipal offices located right next door to them.  And let's not forget about all of the City-operated culprits -- sewage plants, garbage dumps, etc. 

Sorry, how is this supposed to remind people "how awful the meat industry and agroindustry in general is"?  Did I miss something?  Did the evil slaughterhouse and factory farmers plot to make Toronto residents feel ill every time they bike or stroll past King and Bathurst? 

I'm with Trev: "Perhaps the condo dwellers should do a little more fact checking on the 'hood before signing on the dotted line from plans in some condo office ..."

As some one who lives in the area, it definitely still does rank to high heaven of dead animals.  Just the other day I saw a truck full of cow hides, still bloody, covered in birds and flies.  Was amazing.  And yes, it smelt. 

I go to Humber North campus.  Yes, there's a bakery of some sort up in the industrial lands just north of Finch.  I'm not sure if I'd explicitly describe it as a bad smell; it might not be the best thing in the world but it's certainly tolerable! 

The tunnel at Eglinton Station, west side.  As soon as you pass into that corridor, there's a brief smell that can best be described as "poopy", but thankfully it lasts for only a few metres.  It's been there for months. 

It has something to do with their bread, which is made from frozen dough and may have something added to it (fragrance/flavouring) to give that fakey 'freshly baked' smell that permeates the whole store and clings to you if you so much as set foot in the place. 

Pleasant smells around Toronto: the Wing's plant at Bathurst and Dupont when they're making fortune cookies and the 'roasted coffee cloud' that hangs over Kensington sometimes. 

Okay, last night I was reminded of one. 
Driving up Parkside, between High Park Blvd.  and Bloor; you always get this rotting; mossy, shit smell.  I have no idea what it is, but when it's damp or raining, it's even worse! 

I have very little sympathy for the people that moved next to the butcher.  That business has been there long before any of us were.  You should've researched the area before you moved in.  You should've researched your real estate agent as well, since the should've told you about it. 

But as far as bad smells, Toronto smells like a flower shop compared to Terre Haute, Indiana. 

That abattoir has been there nearly a century before your mom and daddy put a down payment on your condo.  Suck it up, if you wanna keep eating suckling piggies,bbq pork and bacon Toronto's restaurants forever and ever! 

The surprising thing is that the Unilever soap factory at the bottom of the Don Valley smelled worse than any meat processing facility's emanations.  Found myself stopped at the lights there while on a bike ride a few years ago and was genuinely holding back the retches.