6 - Sunday, January 17, 1988 - North Shore News

INSIGHTS

$30 parking ‘tickets’
hit Plaza freeloaders

USE YOUR EYES from now on when you park at the In-
ternational Plaza. If you don't, you could get a nasty pain

in the pocketbook.

When the hotel closed last fail,
the pay-parking followed suit.
Gone was the automated gate with
its ticket-dispenser. Gone were the
exit booth and its attendant, whom
you paid when you departed. All
that remained were the now man-
ingless ‘(Have You Got Your
Ticket?" signs and half a dozen
stalls with reserved notices.
Otherwise, the big, wide open
parking lot was ours for free. We
enjoyed it week after week.

Until Thursday, that is, when | -
returned to my car to find a blue
ticket on the windshield — in
shape and layout closely resembl-

ing a police ticket, as one suspects
is the intent. Jt informed me f must
pay Imperial Parking Ltd. $30
(reducible to $20 if | coughed up
within 72 hours) for failing to
display a parking receipt on the
dash. As | drove slowly round the
lot, searching for what had gone
wrong, the yellow 50-cent pay-
ticket machine finally caught my
eye — on the wall of the hotel.
conveniently distant from cach of
the two entrances to the lot and
exactly where you'd last look, for
one.

“When was it installed?'"']
demanded of the lady at Imperial

Parking who answered my call.
“Yesterday,"' she admitted, a lite
unhappily. |] gathered it wasn't the
first complaint she'd fielded in the
past 24 hours. f pointed out the
lack of any adequate warning for
addicted and unsuspecting
freeloaders, and we finally came
to an amicable compromise.

It was nice of imperial, of
course, not fo low my car away.
Even though the thought occurs
that charging $30 (twice the police
rate) for writing out an official
looking '‘ticket'’ with a vague
threat of legal action must be a lot
more profitable for the firm than
paying fur a tow truck driver's
services,

But in any case, dear reader, ex-
pect no mercy in future at the

WEWS photo Net! Lucenta

: |
DISTINGUISHED COMPANY graced the recent opening of the new sports pavillon at West Van's Hugo Ray
playing field. Left to right, Pavilion Society president Peter Mortey, former mayor Derrick’ Humphreys, MLA

John Reynolds (‘‘Mr. Speaker'') and Mayor Don Lanskail.

anadians gencrally embrace the ideal of free

enterprise, but the logging operations taking

~ place near Lions Bay cry out for more stringent
government control. . .

Trees felled from the 30-hectare site are being col-
fected only 300 metres above the volatile Squamish
Highway. One forest official reporis that the
developers are exercising extreme caution, but caution
is not enough when dealing with a road that needs only

a heavy rainfall for the highways department (o put it .

on red alert, as was seen Thursday.

The provincial government failed to demand en-
vironmental and safety studies, and even abetted the
operation by allowing the company access to an old
logging road through Crown land.-A government
spokesman claims that because private land is involved
they cannot intervene, and yet a logging moratorium
existed in the area until the early 1970s — it could be
reinstated again if necessary. .

By being too lenient on this issue, the government is
working at cross-purposes with itself. After pouring
over $50 million into five concrete spillways intended
to control the debris-laden torrents that regularly flood
the. highway’s creeks, it allows the mudslide potential
to increase by condoning unregulated logging which
will have a tremendous impact on the area’s topogra-
phy.

The issue here is not money — it is lives. The safety
/of the road’s travellers must take priority over the in-
terests of any private firm.

BERORE CHRISTMAS.

THERE YOU 60,
YOU POOR CHAP..
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

NANT SONETHNG RR

NOHING Ex? GET A

MBYOUFREEONDNG
BM!

Publisher

Associate Editor

.....Peter Speck

Managing Editor. ... Barrett Fisher
Noel Wright .
Advertising Director. Linda Stewart ee ee ee:

Plaza. Now I've told Imperial’s
story for them, you haven't a tire
to stand on!

HEART BEAT: The ballroom of
Vancouver's Four Seasons Hotel
will be transformed into a ‘*‘cruise
ship’ Friday, Jan.29, for the se-
cond annual Heart Ball, which
launches the B.C. Heart Founda-
tlon's 1988 fundraising campaign
with its $4.5 million target. This
year’s nautical theme was sparked
by the big draw prize, an Alaska
cruise for two, hut that’s only one
highlight of the gala black-tic
evening — which inchides a cham-
pagne reception before dinner,
dancing to the big band sound,
Cartier’s “Game of Chance’? and
lots of other fun. For tickets ($100
per person) call the Heart Founda-
Hon at 736-4404. 1f the event
repeats last year's success, believe
me, you'll have one tremendous
party. Not to mention giving the
Heart Fund a handsome personal
send-off,

lacidentally, a respected media
friend -- West Van journalist and
editor Joanne Leslie ~— has just
started work in her new appoint-
ment as director of education and
public telatians for the Heart
Foundation. Hitherto editor of
B.C.'s Anglican Church newspaper
TOPIC, Joanne ts also a member
since way back of the B.C. Press
Council,

FINAL XMAS STORY comes, of
all places, from the North Van
SPCA and its Volunteer Dog
Walters, On Christinas morning

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Shore. Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885.

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VDWs Norman and Maria Nestie
(Santa and Mrs, Claus), Kathesine
Spong, Lorraine Thomas, Lise
Joregensen and Laurie Keller de-
scended on the shelter, cleaned out
the dog kennels and cat cages, and
then provided a special Christmas
dinner for their four-legged
friends. Though mercifully devoid
of turkey, the menu was described
as nourishing and plentiful, and
the dogs and cats reportedly tuck-
ed in with gusto. Next year ,
maybe, a special Christmas tree for
the pooches — stripped of its
lower branches, of course!

aes

FOR CLOSERS: A note from the
Vancouver YWCA'Ss Louise
Donovan reminding of the
deadline — Feb. 19 — for nomina-
tions for their 1988 '*Women of
Distinction’ awards, which in re-
cent years have honored, among
others, such North Shore
luminaries as Anna Wyman,
Shirley Stocker, Judith Marcuse,
Barbara Rac and Nancy Morrison.
For information on the seven dif-
ferent award categories call Louise
at 683-253! ... And did you hear
that Tiddlycove has won Canada’s
“Fat Clty’ tide for the second
year in a row? Latest Revenue
Canada statistics show West Van
tax filers had an average annual
income of $32,760 — which beat
the runners-up by more than
34,000.

WRIGHT OR WRONG: Never
worry about avoiding temptation
— as you grow older, it starts
avoiding you. @

980-0511
986-6222
985-2131
986-1337
986-1337

MEMBER

Ra

metas Ropers of snares, .

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