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- Violence at Salsa on St. Clair Hurts Small Businesses
Violence at Salsa on St. Clair Hurts Small Businesses
Plus: Electric Island 2026 With Freixenet Cava — Here's the Tea
You've seen the AI demos. Viktor does it without you watching.
The AI tool you tried last quarter waited for a prompt, hallucinated a number, then asked if you'd like a summary.
Viktor opened a PR at 2am, rebased it against main, ran your test suite, and posted a note in #eng: "Two flaky tests in payments service, both pre-existing. Recommended merging after fixing them." Then drafted the customer reply for the support ticket the bug created.
That's 619K autonomous actions per day across 20,000+ teams. Not chat replies. Real work shipped to GitHub, Stripe, Linear, Notion, and 3,000+ other tools, from inside Slack and Microsoft Teams.
You don't supervise him any more than you supervise a senior engineer.
SOC 2 certified. Your data never trains models.
"It's what you probably originally thought AI was going to be when you first heard of it in sci-fi movies." Tyler, CEO.
What’s In This Email
Violence at Salsa on St. Clair Hurts Small Businesses
How much money do you think Toronto makes from VELD?
Electric Island 2026 With Freixenet Cava — Here's the Tea
Notable Plug 🔌
✍️ TAKE NOTE
Violence at Salsa on St. Clair Hurts Small Businesses

I live 500m from where the shooting occurred. I’ve come to know the owners and staff of many of the restaurants and shops along what is known as Hillcrest Village. Our kids go to school together, we see each other walking dogs, but mostly I’m a patron of the small businesses that give the neighbourhood its flavour. The coffee shop knows my drink, the butcher knows my cuts, the ice cream shop knows I’m addicted to ice cream. Before gunfire shattered Salsa on St. Clair, the event represented one of the busiest weekends of the year for these businesses, in addition to the many vendors at the festival. By Saturday evening, however, the celebration had become the scene of a fatal shooting that killed two people and injured several others. Organizers cancelled the remainder of the festival, abruptly ending what many businesses had counted on as a critical source of summer revenue.
Read the full article here.
🌐 How much money do you think Toronto makes from VELD?
Canada’s live music industry is a heavyweight. The broader live music sector — concerts, festivals, electronic dance music, and everything in between — contributes billions to the national economy every year. But that’s the whole scene. What happens when we zoom all the way in on a single event? What does VELD Music Festival’s three-day takeover of Downsview Park actually pump into Toronto?

🔦 NOTABLE SPOTLIGHT 🔦
Electric Island 2026 With Freixenet Cava — Here's the Tea.
Inside Freixenet's All Access Pass experience: a King West brunch, a black-and-gold Cava Carriage, and a sunset dance floor overlooking the Toronto skyline.
Story time, Notable folks.
I opened my DMs to an invite to Freixenet's exclusive All Access Pass experience for Electric Island 2026, which included VIP festival entry, a rooftop brunch, a flowing supply of Cava, and (yes, this is real) a ride to the venue in the Cava Carriage. I RSVPed as quickly as my fingers could type. Who cares what was already in my calendar for that day!
Electric Island is one of Canada’s premier outdoor EDM festivals, celebrating their 14th season. I have wanted to go ever since arriving in Toronto, and this invite from Freixenet made my first experience too good for words. The pre-event experience Freixenet set up for us was equally as fun as Electric Island itself!
Here's how the day actually went.
The Freixenet Cava Brunch at Laissez Faire, King West
I've had my share of brunches around downtown Toronto, but this one topped them all.
Freixenet took us to Laissez Faire in King West — a rooftop spot that hits the modern-industrial-meets-biophilic aesthetic sweet spot. Warm hospitality, upscale finishes, plants everywhere, music softly playing in the background, and an exclusive crew of seven new friends ready to make some noise. If there's a better pregame than this, I haven't found it yet.

Laissez Faire's chicken and waffles were a standout hit — and honestly, the sweet, fruity Cava made every sip and bite feel refreshing rather than heavy.
Freixenet Cava sits at around 11.5% ABV, so it's light enough to sip through a long brunch without feeling weighed down. Not the "flinching-face" energy of harder alcohol — just smooth and easy on the palate.

The Ride of a Lifetime: The Freixenet Cava Carriage
After brunch, we were escorted to the Cava Carriage — a Sprinter Van decked out in black-and-gold Freixenet branding with a tub of chilled Cava bottles waiting for us inside. Each of us received an All Access Pass Kit with a Freixenet handheld fan, earplugs, and a fanny pack. Basically, the exact festival kit I didn't know I needed.

Myself and the other attendees turned the ride into a full pre-party. The playlist was a mix of Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and Justin Bieber warm-up bops layered with tracks from the Electric Island lineup — Sammy Virji, Adam Beyer, and Four Tet. Bottles were popped, bubbles were flowing with the rhythm of the music.
Fun fact: Freixenet Cava is low in sugar compared to most sparkling wines, which helps you avoid the sugar crash while and after drinking — meaning sustained energy for physical activity, aka dancing until past midnight at a festival.
Before hitting the venue, the Cava Carriage made a quick photo stop at Riverdale Park, one of Toronto's best skyline lookouts.

The Main Event: Electric Island 2026 at South River in the Portlands
This year, Electric Island moved to a new venue: South River in the Portlands — a slight step outside the downtown core that gave the festival a more exclusive, remote feel with a golden-hour skyline view in the background.

It was also my first-ever VIP festival experience, and the difference was noticeable immediately. Real space to dance. No shoulder-to-shoulder chaos. Separate stages for different genres, a huge tent for FIFA fans to watch matches between sets, and a solid lineup of food, drinks, and merch vendors.
I arrived properly fuelled by Freixenet Cava and Laissez Faire's chicken and waffles, which meant I had exactly the right energy to walk, mingle, dance, and just soak in the sheer vastness of the venue.
The DJ highlights:
Sammy Virji delivering Talk of the Town and Find My Way Home live — genuinely one of the best live UKG moments I've had.
Adam Beyer dropping Your Mind and Close Your Eyes (his brand-new January 2026 Drumcode single — I know my techno).
Four Tet setting the perfect tone before the closing sets.
From 11 a.m. brunch to 2 a.m. dance floor, I was on my feet the entire time.
Some Facts About Freixenet Cava:
Low in sugar = no mid-day crash
Sub-12% ABV = easy to sip across hours without hitting the wall
Smooth on the palate = no flinching, no harsh burn
Bubbly energy = actually matches the vibe of what you're about to do
I woke up the next morning surprisingly clear-headed for someone who danced for 15 straight hours - feeling like a million dollars. Just a slightly sunburnt shoulder and about 400 videos in my camera roll (probably more).
Freixenet Cava genuinely made the day. If you're heading to any of the remaining Electric Island weekends this summer — or honestly any Toronto festival — grab a bottle to pop with your friends.
Planning your own summer festival lineup? Check out more of Notable Life's Toronto lifestyle and event coverage via www.notablelife.com.
This article is in partnership with Freixenet and OCM European Union.
🔌 NOTABLE PLUG
🌍 Notable Destinations: Toronto to Vancouver Dates: September 2nd - September 9th, 2026. Click here to see the link for this flight.
🗒️ Notable Hires: Digital Marketing Specialist, IBX Services.
🧠 Today We Learned: The longest YouTube video is over 24,000 hours long (yes, literally years).
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