Throughout its six years of trials and triumphs, Little Italy Bakery is bouncing back after a temporary closure earlier this year, adding to a lengthy list of painstaking struggles that has rid the confined bakery of its desired potential.

Located in the heart of Preston St., the authentic Italian kitchen has long spent its days and nights hand making the bread of its customer’s desires. Whether it’s for the city’s craving restaurants and banquet halls, loyal walk-ins or an in-need individual during the holidays, the orders that come in have been met regardless of the business’ circumstances.

“If you’re closed for a week, you’re finished, you’re dead,” admits Ottavio Formica, who has been with the bakery since it’s opening in 2011. “I mean [customers] might wait a day, but they need the bread then and there so if they have to go somewhere else they will.”

Although it was not the first time, such circumstances nearly plagued the bakery in the early months of 2016. On March 9, after an inspector from Ottawa Public Health deemed their sanitation and food protection to be unacceptable, they were shut down. On March 11, after a frantic two-day effort to comply with the city’s regulations was made, Little Italy Bakery reopened with a sigh of relief.

Massimo Marti, owner of Little Italy Bakery, says it was a setback that they could barely afford. “We have no choice but to work hard,” says Marti, who emigrated from Calabria, Italy in 2008. “Tomorrow is supposed to be freezing rain and ten centimetres [of snow], but if you ordered the bread, the bread is coming.”

Evidently, this workhorse attitude of Marti, Formica and the bakery’s three other employees has been its saving grace. According to the City of Ottawa’s inspections data, Little Italy Bakery has been subject to the most non-complacent run-ins with city health and food inspectors since 2013.

In addition to these issues, the bakery has suffered mightily throughout Marti’s contention with the government. Throughout trials of his family’s deportation, the working permits of he and his wife, Vittoria Toscano, and his pending permanent residency, Marti has been, at times, forcibly absent from his high-demand bakery, leaving Formica and others to work for unwavering stretches of time. Working 24 shifts with a quick rest in between, they continued to make good on the bakery’s deliveries until Marti’s work permit was granted.

“It’s a very loyal friendship,” smiles Marti as he cradles his right hand, which has been frozen with carpal tunnel after an intensive work week. “We’re friends, I’m not an employer, he’s my friend.”

Along with Toscano, Marti and Formica have been working the Preston St. locale since the start. Having purchased the vicinity from past bakers, their compact kitchen, which stretches no more than 15 feet wide, has been serving bread for nearly six decades.

“Everyone gets inspected under the same regulations so of course older buildings don’t appear as great, however, that’s not an excuse,” says Toni D’Ettorre, an inspector supervisor from Ottawa Public Health that notes older buildings like Marti’s can slow down attempts to comply with food regulations. “Sometimes these types of establishments take more time to get a resolution than others.”

According to Marti, his hope for a bigger bakery that can handle more orders is currently on the backburner. Without a permanent residency, his future of working in Canada, along with the future of the bakery, is cloudy.

“I’m sorry. I’m still fixing my families situation. When I’m okay, the business will be more focused on.”

Little Italy Bakery from Peter Rukavina on Vimeo.

In the video above, Marti and Formica discuss their bakery, the techniques they use and, of course, their bread.
Source: Peter Rukavina

A potential lack of qualifications along with the ignorance towards the crime’s significance may be the cause for numerous unreported arsons across Ontario.

With municipalities across the country sending local fire services to contain and extinguish fire outbreaks on a daily basis, some believe that underqualified fire servicemen are not able to, or simply do not, determine whether or not a fire was an arson.

“Arson is pretty much the most under-investigated crime in Canada,” says Sgt. David Christie of the Ottawa Police Service’s Arson Unit. “It’s mind-boggling. I’m sure there are at least ten fires a year in Ottawa, if not more than that, that have been incorrectly determined to be accidental.”

According to Statistics Canada, Ottawa has averaged the fourth-lowest annual arson rate – measured by incident per 100, 000 population – among Ontario municipalities between 2011 and 2015. However, Christie is adamant that although these statistics offer wishful thinking, they are skewed.

Instead, he suggests that most members of the fire service do not have the investigative and technical background necessary to properly conduct initial investigations. Without such a background, arson may not come to the attention of the arson unit.

“In some places, investigation is just a box the fire services have to tick off,” says Christie. “It’s not a priority so I think that really does impact a lot of statistics of what is an arson and what isn’t.”

Arson, which is the crime of intentionally setting fire to property, that goes unreported can result in one of three potential consequences. First, an arson deemed to be an accidental fire could leave an arsonist with malicious intent at large. Although some arsonists can be assumed to be non-physical threats to the public as their sole interest is in the insurance claim, there remains the potential of a roaming, public-threatening arsonist.

Another potential consequence of improper investigation is mistaking a homicide for an accidental fire-related death. In connection with the first consequence, livelihood could be jeopardized by not calling in an arson unit for proper investigation.

The third, yet likely not the last, consequence is a fraudulent insurance claim affecting the insurance premiums of the public. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, insurance companies that unknowingly face fraudulent claims raise insurance premiums in order to manage losses.

Mario Delorme, the manager of Ottawa’s Origin and Cause branch, notes that reported arsons allow insurance companies to get involved and prevent fraud.

“Insurance companies hire private sector engineers and fire investigators to find answers as to what happened,” says Delorme. “For example, if a recall from a device is shown to have caused the fire, the insurance industry can choose to proceed with subrogation in order to recover the money they had to pay out to replace what the people have lost.”

Whether it’s in the private sector or a municipality, both Christie and Delorme agree that higher demands of expertise across all fire services are a necessity.

“Fires are complex investigations that often require expertise from many different backgrounds and the process of elimination in a fire scene is crucial to support a hypothesis that can sustain rigid scrutiny if it has to go to court,” says Delorme.

Christie adds to Delorme’s thoughts by saying the curiosity and skepticism achieved in police training are rare in the fire service, but are necessary for investigation.

“The issue is having every fire service in Ontario trained and equipped to conduct thorough fire investigations,” says Christie. “That doesn’t always happen. It’s a matter of getting everyone on board.”