Toronto library apologizes after staff at east-end branch refuse to help lost girl

An exterior shot of TPL's Riverdale Branch (TPL photo)

The Toronto Public Library is apologizing after staff at a branch in the city’s east end refused to provide a lost child with access to a telephone.

The incident happened last Friday.

Megan Kinch told CP24.com that her daughter Esther was let out from her P.A. Day program a couple of hours early and mistakenly jumped on the eastbound streetcar, instead of the westbound one, to go home.

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Finding herself in an unfamiliar part of the city, Kinch said Esther’s first instinct was to call her mother. She walked in to a nearby library at Gerrard Street East and Broadview Avenue to borrow the phone but a staff member at the Riverdale branch refused to accommodate her request. Instead, Kinch said her daughter, who is in Grade 6, was told to use a payphone outside.

Unsure about how to use the payphone, Esther was left standing on the street corner in tears, Kinch wrote in a now-viral post on X, which has been retweeted more than 13,000 times.  

A kind stranger waiting at a nearby bus stop let her daughter borrow her phone, Kinch said.

Kinch and her daughter chatted, and the Good Samaritan sent a pin indicating their location. Kinch, who is a single mom, promptly drove over and picked up Esther without incident. After a big hug and a few tears, they were on their way home.

“I felt helpless because I had asked so many people and no one would help me,” Esther told CP24.com early Monday afternoon.

“Libraries are supposed to be a place where kids are safe and the workers there should let kids use their phone or at least help us use the payphone.” 

Megan Kinch, right, poses for a photo with with her 11-year-old daughter, Esther. (Supplied)

In a statement provided to CP24 on Sunday evening, a spokesperson for the Toronto Public Library apologized for the incident and noted that the branch manager would be communicating directly with the family so that the library could “learn” from the experience.

The spokesperson also said that the library would be “reviewing and reinforcing” its staff training protocols to “make sure nothing like this happens again.”

“We sincerely apologize for the incident at our library branch where an 11-year-old child was denied access to a telephone. This is simply not OK and it doesn’t align with our commitment to serving all community members, especially children, with care and compassion,” Ana-Maria Critchley wrote.

“Keeping our community safe and welcome is at the heart of what we do.”

For her part, Kinch said she spoke with library officials earlier on Monday where they personally apologized for the incident.

But she said that what her daughter experienced should have never happened in the first place.

“It’s important libraries be there for kids. … I’m glad a random woman on the corner helped, but (my daughter) should have been safe in the library. If they had let her call me, I wouldn’t have even had time to worry,” she said.

“I think Toronto Public Library (TPL) needs to revise its policy on children and youths to provide for their well being.”

Kinch added that in other cities, like New York, libraries have safe space policies for youths and said TPL needs to implement this kind of policy and provide specialized training to its staff.

“A child needing to call their mom is an emergency,” said Kinch.