Hoax?

Today as we walked into the North end of the Eaton's Centre, two younge women with a tape recorder and Toronto 640 News badges stopped us and asked if we'd give an opinion. They then told us that City Council had just announced it had set aside a sum of money I don't recall, but in the thousands, to give out wine and cigarettes to the homeless.
"Do you mean they're specifically telling them to buy booze and cigarettes with the money?" I asked, trying to figure out if I was misconstruing their syntax.
"No," insisted the one with the tape recorder, "they're buying the wine and distributing it. The people they're talking about, are like, the really desperate addicts, the ones who'll drink, like, Lysol."
"But, have they officially said this?"
"Oh, yeah, they like, announced it at lunchtime."

Still convinced this was a misunderstanding, I was going to say something like, "Well, I don't have the full details, so I can't really comment," when Himself looked the girl with the taperecorder in the eye:
"I'm sorry, you're just not selling it."

We walked away. "Her friend couldn't keep a straight face." When we got home, I checked the local news sites. There was no mention of such a story, even on 640's own site. The closest I could find was a rant on The Toronto Sun's site about homeless shelters being too cushy and serving "gourmet" meals and wine (I'm guessing maybe the shelters had a party for people at Christmas or something and the Sun got its knickers in a twist).

I'm still not sure if the 640 girls thought they were doing a Rick Mercer-type thing, trying to get people to believe in and comment on an imaginary news story so the audience could snicker "Suckers!" or if they were even from 640 News.

There's a bad taste in my mouth.