Hamilton cops quit for Timbits?

CBC News

Posted: Mar 31, 2013 9:40 AM ET

Last Updated: Mar 31, 2013 9:39 AM ET

Are the words "Timbit" and "double-double" part of your vocabulary? If the answer is yes, you must be Canadian. Despite the fact that it was bought by an American company in 1995, Tim Hortons seems to have injected itself into the centre of our Canadian identity. Started as a small doughnut shop owned by hockey legend Tim Horton, there are now more than 3,000 Tim Hortons locations. CBC Digital Archives looks at the evolution of Tim's.

After 17 years as a police officer in Hamilton, Bud Kenish left the force to open a Tim Hortons franchise. And he's not the only one — over the past several years, 20 cops in the Hamilton area have left the police force to open Tim's franchises. Why the trend?

"They prefer a doughnut franchise to the stressful and often dangerous tasks they had to perform on the beat," explains reporter Stu Patterson in this 1981 CBC-TV clip.

Ron Joyce, Tim Horton's business partner, may have inspired this trend: he was a Hamilton police officer before he went into the doughnut business with Horton. Joyce left the force and bought the franchise for the first "Tim Horton's Do-nuts" on Ottawa Street in Hamilton in 1965 (the store had been in operation since 1964). By 1967, with three stores now in the chain, Joyce became a full partner in the business with Horton.