History
Sunrise Propane Industrial Gases was a company that sold propane for commercial and home purposes, in addition to other gases like helium and acetylene. The company has operated under a number of names since at least 1999. In 2002, a company named Sunrise Petroleum was successfully sued by First Choice Petroleum Inc., an oil and lubricants supplier, that claimed the company owed them C$54,063.73 in products and that Sunrise forged a document to avoid settling their account. In that case, it was found that Sunrise had forged the signature of a First Choice employee named Thomas Tims in a 1999 document, which stated Sunrise Petroleum would be taken over by a new company called Sunrise Petroleum Lubricants, and that Sunrise Petroleum would thereby not be responsible for any outstanding, unpaid, or unsettled accounts. However, Tims would not have signed the document because he was listed on it as "Tim Toms", rather than Tom Tims. As a result of the case, Sunrise was forced to pay the account owed plus interest, totalling C$93,389.54, and an additional C$34,284.71 in legal fees. Court documents also revealed a third name, Sunrise Propane & Petroleum, that the company had previously used.
An Ontario corporate profile states the facility was incorporated in 2004, though a Sunrise corporate solicitor and spokesperson is uncertain how long the facility was in operation. The facility was built in a residential neighbourhood in the North York area of Toronto. Toronto mayor David Miller stated that the facility was allowed to be built in the neighbourhood under zoning that was in place for over a decade.
The facility had previously been warned by Ontario's Technical Standards and Safety Authority for its lack of safety by not stopping truck-to-truck transfers at the company's facilities. During the investigation following the explosions, investigators found that truck-to-truck transfers were common at the facility. Truck-to-truck transfers are prohibited in Ontario because they increase the risk of a gas leak or a fire.
Read more about this topic: Toronto Propane Explosion
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)