Beauty queens can still get arrested

Miss Toronto Tourism 2005 is due in court March 6 in connection with a masked purse grabbing spree, involving imitation firearms, at the Soft Hands Spa in Mississauga – in addition to being charged with planning a follow-up heist at Brampton’s Mystique Massage Parlour, along with four alleged accomplices, in October 2004. A report in the Star pointed out 20-year-old Zenovique Wilson earned her Miss Toronto crown in April 2005, while out on bail. Based on this forum posting, Wilson appeared as a SUNshine Girl a few weeks later, then she sported her sash at a Caribana-themed event at the Parkway Mall, although her blonder replacement was evidently given the honour of crashing Film Festival parties by the time September rolled around. Not unlike how Vanessa Williams was stripped of her title as Miss America 1984 after an erotic photo session turned up in Penthouse – only to become the most legitimately famous talent to score that honour – the Miss Toronto Tourism website now lists a runner-up as 2005’s titleholder. But perhaps in the effort to keep the tiara from being altogether tarnished, a Miss Toronto Tourism was already crowned for 2006, not that it’s easy to keep tabs on such details. The people behind the pageant, which launched in 1999, remain particularly elusive – the Toronto Board of Trade has been unsuccessful in ever trying to reach anyone in regard to the misleading “tourism” brand, reports The Mississauga News. While 1993’s second-place finisher in the Miss India Canada contest, Ruby Dhalla, is now into her second term as Brampton-Springdale MP, it’d seem a reigning ambassador of beauty needs to be accused of wrongdoing to get noticed in the GTA. Last summer, resident Miss Universe title holder Natalie Glebova was kept from acting in her official capacity at the Taste of Thailand Festival at Nathan Phillips Square when municipal policies insisted she could only be introduced as “an individual of note” – resulting in an apology from the mayor. The website for the beleaguered Miss Canada International contest, however, prominently features two titleholders who were dethroned over the past decade, perfectly appropriate considering the shady practices the event was accused of by former contestants. Hopefully, the self-proclaimed Miss Canadiana – the alter ego of artist Camille Turner – can continue in her quest to soak up the adulation that actual pageant winners are being denied.