[1] The Gerrard India Bazaar Business Improvement Area (BIA)[2] sponsors events that appeal to the different South Asian groups that shop in the area: in 2004, Diwali, the Hindu and Sikh festival of lights, and Eid ul-Fitr, the Islamic feast day that marks the end of Ramadan, occurred around the same time in November.

Despite there being few South Asians residents in that part of the city, Naz opened his theatre in the economically depressed, largely British-Canadian area because it was the cheapest venue he could find.

The area contained approximately 100 South Asian shops and restaurants and received an estimated 100,000 tourists in 1984, including visitors from as far as Detroit.

[5] With incidents escalating and shop owners feeling the police ignoring the crimes, in 1977 the South Asian community started an anti-racist taskforce to report racist attacks.

Other developed or emerging South Asian neighbourhoods are also located in the surrounding cities of Mississauga, Brampton, Milton, Markham, Pickering, and Ajax.