Montreal mall playing 'Baby Shark' to prevent homeless loitering

Not the first: In 2023 a store in B.C. did the same, and in 2019 officials in Florida played it through the night near a city-owned patio

MONTREAL — A shopping mall and office complex in downtown Montreal is being criticized for using the popular children’s song Baby Shark to discourage unhoused people from loitering in its emergency exit stairwells.

At the mall Thursday morning, the catchy children’s song — versions of which have been viewed and streamed hundreds of millions of times online — was being broadcast from speakers in at least one of the stairwells, on loop and at various speeds.