Attacked on SeaBus: A8

THE VOICE OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER

Point Atkinson
Wednesday

WEDNESDAY
sunny, bighs near I*
THURSDAY
sunny, highs near 1°

Newsstand Price 50c December 21, 1983 Newsroom 985-2131 Classified 986-6222

NEWS STAFF

FOR THE second year
in a row, Shirley
Meltsner’s plans for a
bright Christmas have
gone awry, thanks to
bulb-stealing grinches.

Last year, Meltsner strung
Christmas lights on a back-
yard cherry tree. They were
stolen.

This year, she moved a new
set of lghts out front,
decorating a  front-yard
Scotch pine.

‘Last week I looked at the
tree and thought a string of
lights might be gone,’ she
told the News Tuesday
**Then Saturday night we got
home and the tree had been
torn apart.

. Two complete strings of
lights had been stolen and all
the bulbs had been removed
from a third.

Meltsner responded by pain
ting the sign shown in the
photograph and planting it in
her front yard in lieu of
Christmas decorations

‘This morning a woman
from down the street, who |
didn’t know, came and
knocked on my door and told
me the same thing had hap
pened to her,””’ she says

“TL used to think that if
everyone on the street put up
a string of lights how nice the
city would look '’ Meltsner
adds Now. she says. she
knows why people don't

C st Rod Booth of North
Vancouver KOMP says the
theft of lights is) an annual
problem that can be traced.
for the most part. to kids

They lake the colorful
Christmas light) bulbs. he
says. because they caplode
when tosscd agaist side
walks and comercte walls

“Some of the thefts cam be
traced to people taking st:
Ings of lights to decorate ther
own homes and apartments
but mostly ats kids said
Booth

Says Meltsner ““My house
is now dark for ¢ hrisemas
Hib suay that way forthe next
couple of years