OCTOBER 27, 2022 VOLUME 116 ISSUE 3
since 1906
What’s next for Western’s mask mandate? VERONICA MACLEAN NEWS INTERN SONIA PERSAUD NEWS EDITOR
W
SOPHIE BOUQUILLON GAZETTE Managers Salah Iraqi (left) and Fesih Ahmi (right) stand outside of King Richie's pizza shop, Oct. 24, 2022.
The King of Richmond Street LAUREN MEDEIROS CULTURE EDITOR
K
ing Richie’s, the pizza shop located on the corner of Richmond and Broughdale, was not always the rite-of-passage late-night food stop for students that it now is. Afshine Jahangiri, founder of King Richie’s, admits the joint started with “horrible tasting food” — so much so that he considered selling the store within its first year. He bought the shop’s current location — which used to be a burger joint — in April 2012 and began renovations immediately. Jahangiri recalls this tough time, going back and forth with city bylaws and equipment deliveries. The business was not able to open its doors until five months later, during the second week of the school year. Sales were mediocre at best and he was scraping by with only “pocket money,” budgeting to invest most of his cash back into
the business. Faced with the decision to sell or keep plotting on, Jahangiri decided King Richie’s needed to perfect the basics — starting with the dough. The shop tested over 50 dough recipes, giving samples to family and friends for feedback. They did the same thing with the sauce and ended up with a new and improved base for their pizzas. The word spread across Western campus about the new pizza. Jahangiri noticed the increase in students who heard about the cheap pizza parlour a walking distance away, open into the early hours of the morning — 3 a.m. on weeknights and 4 a.m. on weekends. “I got to know a lot of students by name. A couple of them I became friends with, especially the first-years,” says Jahangiri. “They became sophs and brought all their frosh the year after [so] we started getting really busy.” When he first purchased the location 10 years ago, Jahangiri says he remembers
driving along Richmond Street, trying to brainstorm a name for the restaurant. Maybe “Richie's Pizza,” he thought before seeing a “Richie’s Breakfast” only a few minutes up the road. He was determined to find something more catchy and original. From the very beginning, Jahangiri believed they would be the most successful business on the street. “‘He can be Richie, but I’m the king of Richmond,’” Jahangiri said to himself that day, cementing the name “King Richie’s.” No matter how many pizzas the shop sold in those first years of success, gaining the trust from their customer base — which became largely students — was always the most important thing to Jahangiri. The regulars got to know Jahangiri well enough to know him by the nickname “Ash.” CONTINUED ON P6
CONTINUED ON P5
OPINION
CULTURE
Why am I interested in serial killer stories… and is that okay?
estern president Alan Shepard has said that the university is looking to release a statement about the future of mask mandates on campus sometime in late November or early December. Shepard’s statement comes one week after Western University's announcement on Oct. 17 that the current classroom mask mandate will continue until at least the end of the fall term. Western is the only major university in Ontario requiring masking in instructional spaces. “Our intention with the masking policy just here was to make classroom spaces safe, not only for everybody, but also particularly for people who are immunocompromised, whether it be a student or a prof or a staff member,” said Shepard. The university previously announced on Aug. 22 that masks would be required in instructional settings where physical distancing is not possible, and on Sept. 6, committed to reviewing its policy after Thanksgiving weekend. The university’s masking policy has seen both backlash and support from the Western community. In August, a protest against the mask and booster mandates saw over 400 attendees, although the University of Western Ontario Faculty Association has expressed support for the policy. While masking is still required in classrooms, the mandate has not been strictly enforced, with students not social distancing, wearing masks improperly or not wearing masks at all in classrooms. “A lot of students, I see them not wearing masks in the classroom,” said Aya Al Darwish, a first-year engineering student. Al Darwish added that, in some classes, professors “don’t care” whether students wear a mask or not. Alexandra Dassios, a second-year kinesiology student, said professors in two of her five classes remind students to wear masks, but the rest don’t. Even in the classes where her profs do tell students to mask, Dassios said many of her classmates don’t. “I find when the teachers mention it, it’s probably more than 50 per cent who wear it, but the classes where the profs don’t bother, not many do,” said Dassios. “In my physiology class, they have masks at the front and they’ll mention it, but there will still be a couple of people that don’t.”
P6
Head-to-Head: Are breadth requirements good for students? P8
NEWS
Faculty oppose SRA replacement policy at Senate debate P3
SPORTS
Students petition to move first-year physics exam for World Cup final P11