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This is a Toronto no-go zone!

As Canada inches closer to becoming an associate member of the European Union, as some of those countries have experienced, this country’s biggest city has its own areas that are unsafe to travel through.

While noticeable in downtown areas near Union Station, they are also found in some neighbourhoods like Danforth Village. A section of the north sidewalk on Danforth Ave., between Main St. and Dawes Rd., has become a “don’t you dare” walk-through area with fencing and security.

It looks like hell on earth. A disgrace to Toronto and Canada — a time bomb that looks like it has already ignited.

Before witnessing the human tragedy, the first thing you notice is garbage everywhere. You will smell it too. Feces, urine and vomit. Look a little closer on the sidewalk by your feet; you will see dozens of syringes, some with the needle still intact, lying there to be stepped on.

Then you hear the moaning, groaning, yelling, swearing and suffering. For families, walking along there is terrifying. It feels like a death strip. Heightened by fencing erected to protect road construction along that section of the Danforth, the area is like a funnel in which people walking through are essentially trapped.

A walk through Toronto’s “No Go’ Zone along sidewalk in Danforth Village. This not the pride of Toronto. It’s the shame of Toronto. And the disgrace of Canada. pic.twitter.com/la2bi1vqns

— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) September 17, 2026

Zombie zone

Their safety is at the mercy of the zombie-like throng that stays there 24/7 and decides who gets to walk through and who doesn’t. Sure, it’s not as bad as it is in Vancouver’s east side. But it’s still nothing to be proud of.

All of the people need immediate help, and not encouragement to stay there. And they need to be told they are not the mayor, police or security. If a citizen takes a picture or video, instant intimidation ensues and threats of violence.

“On the weekend there was a guy with a hammer who didn’t let anybody through,” said one nearby resident, telling The Sun , “there was 17 drug users smoking openly and harassing anyone who dared to use the sidewalk.”

With photographer Ernest Doroszuk, we saw a similar scene Wednesday and witnessed a man assaulted by a female who protested him capturing images on his phone. Mayor Olivia Chow or her opponent for mayor, Councillor Brad Bradford, whose ward this is, are not in charge there. These drug addicts and their pushers are.

I witnessed at film this (alleged) assault on the Danforth near Dawes Road and, yes, @TorontoPolice is investigating pic.twitter.com/FlRT9nn4Fw

— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) September 17, 2026

Families are terrified

This is their turf. And they will let you know that.

“I am terrified to bring my family by here,” said Reihane, a woman who has lived nearby since 2019. “It’s too dangerous.”

But her pharmacy is there. Canadian Tire is right across the street. Nail salons and hairstylists.

“People have no choice but to walk on the sidewalk there,” said Caryma Sa’d, an independent journalist who has captured the madness there but is hoping to find a way to change the fortunes of both the people suffering from their dependencies and the neighbours suffering from the out-of-control drug use.

  • WARMINGTON: Toronto's Zombie Apocalypse not a horror film but sadly very real

Sa’d is running for councillor in the neighbouring Danforth ward just west and said, win or lose, she’s pushing for both more effective and serious harm reduction efforts while clearing the area of those in desperate need of medical and mental health intervention while also pushing away the drug entrepreneurs impeding the sidewalks.

It won’t be easy.

Toronto Police know this firsthand. One neighbour said recent edicts from 55 Division have been effective and residents notice more officers patrolling and doing what they can.

“OK, this is not a patio,” said one community patrol officer. “Everybody, let’s move along.”

While investigating the alleged assault, he and his partner were successful in getting the under-the-influence of narcotics to scurry. “But we know 20 minutes after they leave, everybody will be back,” said the frustrated officer.

He was right.

Like a bomb went off

This, after all, is their home during the day when nearby homeless shelters send people out in the morning and often don’t let unruly guests back in. The result makes the area look like a bomb went off — an apocalypse.

One woman in a nearby shelter said she has witnessed many overdoses there. A shop owner told us that his business is dead, but rather than evict him, his landlord is letting him stay there until the building eventually gets knocked down and replaced by a condo because the alternative is to have it filled with squatters.

Down along the Danforth between Main Street and Dawes Road, there is quasi self-appointed security, which harasses anybody who tries to capture the images of the apocalyptic mayhem that permits, which should be a celebrated Toronto Neighbourhood, but has become a no go zone pic.twitter.com/gKBSfg9zvS

— Joe Warmington (@joe_warmington) September 17, 2026

Maybe one day this area will thrive and be vibrant. In September of 2026, and for the past year or more, it has become a dead zone. The sidewalk is routinely “completely unpassable with the people loitering” and blocking it with “bikes, furniture” and a wall of slumped-over bodies.

“Now they are harassing anyone entering a local business, including the staff members, stealing money from the cash and food,” said the neighbour.

When we were there, a man on the bike followed us and said “we have no right” to record video or take pictures of the area and that the police would be called. So far, there is nothing the leaders of this homeless enclave can do to prevent journalists or the public from documenting the tragedy and mayhem there, so it can’t be scrubbed as happening. Liberal MP Arielle Kayabaga has forwarded a petition to bring in a law to make it illegal to film people in crisis or under the influence of narcotics.

Hopefully this will not gain support before the government deals with the actual nightmare there is. The situation is untenable there, and journalists highlighting it are not nearly as much the problem as the drug dealers who service it and the politicians who ignore it are.

Some will say there’s not enough money out there to stop this.

But taxpayers paid millions for World Cup soccer games or for leaders to travel around the world while ignoring sections of Toronto where citizens are not safe to go.