Canada

This disconnect between how municipal leaders and many apartment/condo-dwelling constituents

We practice democracy. The municipal leaders are the constituents. Mayors and councillors are employees hired by the leaders to carry out their bidding. That said, there is probably something to be said about the, more likely to be poorer, people in apartment/condos spending less time – even no time – directing their employees. As the employees are certainly not mind readers, they are going to lean towards the bosses that talk to them and will quickly forget about the silent.

We do we have these bylaws? Ignorance rooted in class.

That is no doubt a large part of it. But there is also a lot of plain old conservatism, particularly in Toronto. Alcohol in convenience stores? "Won't someone please think of the children?" Toronto cries – not noticing that rural Ontario has allowed the sale of alcohol in convenience stores since 1962 without problem. Hell, it took until the year 2000 for Toronto to finally give up on being dry, decades after the rest of the province abandoned the idea. Like the naysayers to marijuana legalization, which turned out to be a nothingburger in the end, there is a lot of fear of the unknown. Should the bylaws be lifted, they would no doubt quickly forget about their concerns, but that doesn't stop the irrational resistance beforehand.