News of the War on Fun, apparently newly waged by Toronto city hall, was carried on the front page of Thursday morning’s newspaper. By Thursday afternoon, politicians at city hall were eager to announce they were leading the resistance.

“I am not going to be the leader who attacks fun in this city; I can assure you of that. Patios are a hugely important part of my life. I sit outside as soon as I possibly can in April or March if that’s possible. I think it is an important part of keeping neighbourhoods lively,” Mayor John Tory said to CP24, indicating he had learned of a proposal from city staff to drastically raise the rates on patio permit fees on the morning radio and would oppose it. Given the general reaction, it’s hard to imagine anyone on city council would take a different position.

As if to cement council’s insistence that they are actually the Fun Brigade, there was more, on other topics: Councillor Joe Cressy reacted to reports of the demise of the beloved music hole Silver Dollar by pointing out to Now Magazine that the joint — including its sign, stage, bar and even its floor tiles — are protected by an agreement between the city and the developer.

And then the mayor and his official music dude (and transit chair), Councillor Josh Colle, sent out a press release to announce that they are “actively taking steps to address” the recent apparent spate of music venue closures, including five bullet-pointed items outlining those steps, including a city council “motion aimed at protecting live music venues.”

I ask you: how much more rock ’n’ roll does it get than that? What could be more synonymous with fun than a city council motion? Take that, bureaucratic and market forces aligned to snub out joy in all its forms! Perhaps you had not reckoned on A Motion to Protect the Allowance of Good Times Rolling All Night Long.

Good stuff. Party on, mayor.

But perhaps, just for a moment, we could look at what might have led to this War on Fun discussion in the first place, to diagnose how to avoid hostilities in the future. The patio kerfuffle arose from a long overdue item on the city’s post-amalgamation to-do list. Some 17 years after the six municipalities of Metro joined together to become Toronto, bureaucrats were finally getting around to taking the patio permit laws from different parts of the city and “harmonizing” them.

As Councillor Shelley Carroll reminded me discussing the patio issue Thursday morning, as staff crafted this One Permit Law To Rule Them All, they were guided by city hall buzzwords that have become prominent over the past decade of budget cycles: “full cost recovery.” As I wrote on Thursday, in the city’s quest to maintain “affordability” by keeping tax rates low, they have been mandated to jack user fees higher. This has led to everything from garbage collection rates being hiked and rebates being phased out to community recreation registration fees being increased and increased again, in the name of recovering costs. The city has maintained, or at least has tried to, subsidies aimed directly at low-income people. But for everyone else, in many cases the mantra becomes: you use it, you pay for it.

It seems natural this would apply to for-profit businesses like bars and restaurants using city sidewalks as extensions of their dining rooms. One might ask: Why should we subsidize them in the use of our space so they can sell beer? The city incurs costs policing those patios, dealing with noise complaints and so on.

And yet, if you focus on recovering the cost of everything, you risk overlooking the value of many things. Patios are not just money-makers for food-service proprietors. They also provide a service to the city. They make the street come to life, adding to the chatter and hum of activity that makes urban living exciting, expanding the range of options for enjoying the city residents have, making neighbourhoods more interesting for everyone who lives in them — as Mayor Tory says, “keeping neighbourhoods lively.”

You could, of course, say the same for things like food trucks, seating in public places, Reg Hartt’s indie Cineforum theatre, street festival closures and any number of other fun or interesting things the city has seen fit to throw into the bureaucratic grinder in recent years. Perhaps a different argument.

But it’s also the case for libraries and parks and community rec centres and youth sports leagues and lots of other services the city provides or permits. They provide direct benefits to people, for sure, but they also provide a community benefit through their existence. Fees, and especially higher fees, discourage use of things that are often more valuable the more they are used. That’s bad. Because the less they are used, the less we can justify keeping them around. The city’s cost recovery policies recognize this: they suggest accounting for community benefits. Perhaps that needs to be brought back to the forefront of the discussion.

Everyone seems to agree now in the case of patios that the rate we charge should not be one high enough to discourage most patio operators from running their businesses at all. Perhaps, as staff have explained, it’s just a matter of a wrong first attempt at what a reasonable price would look like. Fair enough. Everyone in charge seems to be resolving that the new rates should be ones that encourage things that are fun. Great news.

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But if we’re trying to avoid accidental attacks on fun perhaps we need better guidance for our bureaucrats. After all, it’s hard to blame them when they hear “full cost recovery” and don’t immediately understand that the mayor of Toronto Rock City actually means “dancing in the streets.” If they really want to cement the par-tay politics, perhaps they could crank up one of those wild city council motions. Fun times.

Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca . Follow: @thekeenanwire