page_title: David Zancai
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: David Zancai / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: David Zancai, known for his "Zanta" persona, is escorted by police through the Taste of the Danforth in Toronto.
context_page_description: David Zancai was a street entertainer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Zancai was known for his character Zanta: a modified Santa Claus who travels the streets of downtown Toronto doing pushups and shouting "yes yes yes" and "Merry Christmess". His costume consisted of nothing but shorts, boots, and a red-and-white Santa hat, even during Toronto's winters. He claims to perform this routine every day of the year except Christmas Day, and estimates he does 2,000 to 3,000 pushups per day. In 2000, Zancai fell 25 feet onto a staircase while working as a painter. He entered treatment for schizophrenia at St. Joseph's hospital, having been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder earlier in 2003. Zancai has received mixed responses to his Zanta character, and has been banned from several public areas around Toronto, including the Toronto Transit Commission. He is known to verbally harass women while riding the TTC. His abuse includes verbally threatening, slut shaming and physically intimating woman who have not provoked him.
context_section_description: In 2005, Zancai's desire for fame and exposure resulted in at least one arrest on mischief charges. Zanta has claimed that on August 19, 2006, he was banned from the Exhibition Place grounds, in particular the Canadian National Exhibition, after performing in the Farm, Food and Fun building. On November 17, 2006, 680 News radio reported Zancai had been banned by the Toronto Transit Commission from the city's buses, subways, and subway stations. Zancai is no longer allowed at the Toronto Street Festival, the Taste of the Danforth, the St. Patrick's Day Parade or the Santa Claus Parade. He has also been banned from Old York Lane between Cumberland Street and Yorkville Avenue in Yorkville, College Park, and Dundas Square.
  In August 2006, Zancai received a provincial probation order stating that he is "not permitted on any TTC property or vehicle other than surface routes" for two years. Most bus drivers in the city refuse him access to surface routes. Zancai is fighting the ban, with an attorney handling his case pro bono. Former TTC Chairman Adam Giambrone acknowledged there is no specific TTC bylaw against doing push-ups on TTC property, but has defended the ban by stating that such behaviour may pose a "serious safety hazard".
  Adam Vaughan, a former Citytv reporter and councillor for Trinity—Spadina, has stated that Zancai is "a much-loved character when you don't have to do work around him" but he is nonetheless "probably a public nuisance," and that some people understandably take issue with his behaviour. In an interview with the National Post, Vaughan stated: "Just because you have a right to freedom of speech doesn't mean you have a right to an audience. And when you impose yourself in a public space consistently and without much regard for whether other people can enjoy that public space, boundaries are broached." Zancai's lawyer has responded by saying that Zancai is "entitled to be as strange as he wants to be" and has defended his right to make use of public spaces for doing pushups.
caption: Zancai at Toronto's Taste of the Danforth in August 2015.
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