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Victoria bakery Bubby Roses's swept up in Rob Ford scandal

A small Victoria bakery has found itself swept up into the circus-like atmosphere that’s enveloped scandal-plagued Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.
Phone number linked to a Victoria bakery, blacked out here, is noted in a document. Toronto Police
Phone number linked to a Victoria bakery, blacked out here, is noted in a document. Toronto Police

A small Victoria bakery has found itself swept up into the circus-like atmosphere that’s enveloped scandal-plagued Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Bubby Rose’s Bakery on Cook Street is cited amid hundreds of pages of Toronto police documents newly released by an Ontario court.

The reference involves a cellphone registered to bakery owner Mark Engels’ daughter, Marissa, who lives in Toronto where she works as a fashion designer.

A man may have used the phone to call a TV cameraman in an attempt to sell a video of the mayor smoking crack cocaine, according to the documents.

However, police never confirmed that the call was related.

Any connection between the Ford drama and the Victoria bakery makes for an entertaining story, said Mark Engels, who started the business in 2002.

“This is fun, it’s making my day,” he said. “I’m going to tell my staff we’re mentioned in the court documents of Rob Ford in a roundabout way.”

Engels said he wishes Toronto police had spelled his bakery’s name correctly in the documents, rather than using “Bubby’s Cook Street.”

“God, they couldn’t get the name right?” he joked. “Damn, I might have gotten some play out of that.”

Engels’ daughter could not be reached for comment.

The fact her phone number, and the name of the bakery, shows up in police documents as part of the scandal is odd, Engels said. “Wow, that’s beyond weird,” he said.

The references are on just one of the 474 pages in a police search-warrant application, which was partially unsealed by an Ontario court Wednesday.

Toronto police interviewed CTV News Toronto cameraman Andrew Lawson, who said in February that a young man in his 20s offered him a video of Ford in a “compromising position,” according to the documents.

Lawson thought it was the crack video.

The man wanted money, so Lawson gave him his business card with the name of his boss, CTV News director Steve Cassar, written on the back, the documents say.

On March 12, Lawson got a call from an unknown man asking for Steve.

Police traced the phone to Marissa Engels, 24, in a Toronto, according to the documents.

Police discovered the phone was registered to Bubby Rose’s Bakery at 1022 Cook St. in Victoria.

Engels said he keeps his daughter’s phone on his business plan, as a perk of owning the bakery.

He said he has no idea who the man using the phone could have been, if it was related to Ford or if it could even have been a wrong number.

His daughter was hanging around with a man in March who ended up being “flaky” and “did not fit her cup of tea,” said Engels, but he’s not sure if that’s related.

Police do not appear to have pursued the phone call any further, and neither Engels nor the bakery is mentioned again in the documents.

rshaw@timescolonist.com