The Merry Dairy on Fairmount Avenue in Ottawa’s Hintonburg neighborhood posted on social media that their blue and white bicycle cart had gone missing Friday night. “This bike was lost overnight,” Merry Dairy said, showing a photo of the pedal cart with ice cream pictures and a cycling Canada goose and geese on it. “Any information on his whereabouts would be greatly appreciated.” People reacted quickly to the bike’s disappearance, wondering how someone could have taken it and hoping it would be found. “One tire was flat,” Merry Dairy said in a response to a Facebook comment, “so it shouldn’t be too far!” Several people were quick to point out that they had seen the bike on Elgin Street, about 3.5km away from the main Merry Dairy site. Within 30 minutes, the popular ice cream shop said their bike was found, right where some eagle-eyed residents said it would be. “Found near Elgin Street! Thank you all for sharing,” an updated post said. Owner Marlene Haley tells CTV News the basket is currently being used as a flower box. It is part of the morning routine that the staff brings forward every day. “They went to move it and noticed it was gone,” Haley said. “They looked around the immediate area and realized it had been taken.” The post about the missing basket was posted on social media, and Haley said the response was very quick. “The community has been amazing. We’ve had people suggest sharing it on missing bike pages. On Facebook, it was shared 115 times in 45 minutes. It reached so many people,” Haley said. Advice came almost immediately. Someone said they saw someone riding it on Gladstone Avenue. Others said they traced it to Elgin. It wasn’t long before the cart was recovered. “We followed the trail where we found it and took our flowers back as well,” he said. The cart is now safe and sound. Haley said it was originally purchased with the intention of doing bike deliveries, but they found it to be a bit heavy. “There are a lot of hills near us, so we’re using it as a flower box at the moment,” he said. The store is considering getting an e-bike for deliveries. Merry Dairy was in the news recently when it ran into trouble with its wholesale operation, following a visit from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, which said the store could not sell its products wholesale because it was not a factory-based dairy. of the Milk Act. The community came out to help the store then too. In a post on the store’s blog, owner Haley said the community’s response helped highlight to provincial officials that “there is an opportunity here to update regulations to accommodate small businesses and reflect the realities of life in 2022.” .
