garde of biases BET ON it: The decision this _week of North Vancouver city and district councils to outlaw _ video lottery terminals must -have been received with: ' delirious glee in certain not- -So-evident quarters. .. Namely? Pushers of gambling. More precisely, certain pushers of " gambling. Certain players in the bur- : geoning gambling industry. You may say: “Huh? The VLTs were tumied down. Surely this is splendid news for the pure, upright citizens of the two North Vancouvers.” -But if you are the typical intelli- gent reader of this column you will nod: “Yeah.” The logic is obvious. Politics makes strange bedfel- WOUL BE HEY TOKEN THAT WERE HOLDING FR TH OUR DETERMHNATHN TO KEEP THOSE rea Hishedg AUAY,.. HeUp.. woken. X? properly happy. So are the good, upright citizens whose charitable organizations currently are allowed gambling nights under strict rules. But so must be vested and future interests in the gambling industry. It’s always been so. Bootleggers used to craftily get behind “dry” groups that advocated or defended prohibition. Which was good for business — their business. Gambling too is big business. And much bigger to come. Not for nothing is the Harcouri-Georgetti government trying to seize control of the action. What's the situation? The 18- municipality Greater Vancouver Regional District flatly rejected Victoria's pitch favoring legal VLTs. Now the entire North Shore — West Vancouver having acted a few weeks ago -—~ has driven the point home with bylaws forbidding VLTs of any stripe. So the three communities — among B.C.’s very richest — have emphatically shown their hands. No . VLTs. No legal gambling. A vast vacuum has been created. This creates opportunities. And who now is in a position to benefit? Ata wild, wild guess I would suggest: The Indian bands. You have probably heard about land claims negotiations. And about Indian self-government. No one knows where these talks will go. But — this on the authority of no Jess than the federal minister VICWIBCHIE ORTH SHORE residents are the win- ners in the recent decisions by North Vancouver City and District councils to ban the use of Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs) in their respective municipalities. The move by the two North Vancouvers fol- lows a similar decision earlier this month by West Vancouver District Council to prohibit the so-called gaming devices in that munici- pality. Banning VLTs on the North Shore makes sense because the machines are not the benign recreational diversions being soft-peddled to British Columbians by the seft-headed NDP government. They are an insidious form of gambling that sucks more out of the pockets of those who chronically have the least in those pock- ets to Spare. The NDP has argued that VLTs are already in operation illegally all over the province and rather than continue to let money wagered in the machines be siphoned off by shady opera- tors Victoria should reap the benefits of a pas- time that is already an integral part of the British Columbian indoor sports scene. But that argument is as wet as most of the NDP MLAs currently mismanaging the province. And apart from anything else, evidence of VLTs or VLT enthusiasts, on the North Shore anyway, is virtually non-existent. No reason, then, to give such a local non-event any fertile ground in which to take root. VLTs have no place on the North Shore. ‘North Vancouver has resoundingly sent that message to any prospective video gambling operators. It’s a winning decision with a positive social payoff. prea kibycp ic whom I put this question — Indian bands already have a higher status than mere municipalities, ; The negotiations, you ‘IW recall, are “nation-to-nation.” So the Squamish Nation (pop. 2,552) and the Burrard Nation (pop. 291), whose land claims including the North Shore are 6,950 and 1.770 square kilometres respectively, are already more powerful than the three North Shore municipal councils rep- resenting more than 140,000 non- , Indians. And if Indian bands decide to throw up a casino, who's to Stop them? I don’t think the federal or provincial government would dare to. If not now, certainly in the future — unless the present course radical- ly shifts — I would guess that the Indians will have and will exercise the right to establish casinos. Like Lummi Casino in Washington state. At last week’s public meeting on land claim negotiations a woman uneasily asked if, in future, Indians could block transportation and so forth on the North Shore. And Squamish Chief Joe Mathias calmly replied that they would have and always have had the “potential.” But, he went on, they'd been reasonable about such matters. Which invites the question: What about tomorrow’s leaders who might be less reasonable than Chief Mathias? Sewers. Not a politically sexy subject. But the proposed new sewer from 24th to [5th in West Vancouver, a hot topic because pre- sent plans call for tearing up and widening the seawall walk, apparent- ly is also a hot topic behind closed doors. In February Derrick Humphreys, a former miner who knows some- thing about pipelines, and also a for- mer mayor who knows something . about politics, proposed a second Opinion on the project. Council — surprisingly, perhaps — agreed. Engineers Dayton and Knight agreed to do a study for a — surprisingly, again? — mere $5,000. The company seems to be more. than eaming its modest fee. Twice council has deferred the matter, most lately to May 15, while Dayton and Knight, the project engineers and GYRD officials have held meetings to discuss changes. My suspicion: - They ain’t overly harmonious. ees I’m amused that, by the lights of West Vancouver Council reporter Maureen Curtis, the top three coun- cillors are Mayor Mark Sager, . Patricia Boname and Diana Hutchinson. As Talways drily say about such assessments: They tend to tell you more about the assessor than about the assessees. Save Deep Cove forests Dear Editor: My husband and 1 have become increasingly aware of additional proposed develop- ment in the Deep Cove/Mt. Seymour area —-.. namely “Mountain Forest” and’! ‘Cove Forest.” - ; An additional 2,000 units of residential living are to be located in this area. ; We moved here six years ago for the quality of life out here — trails and forest on our doorstep. However, we and others * around us ‘will lose this if such vast development goes ahead. The ecological impact of this - area will be greatly affected: Wildlife, streams, ‘fish, tees, birds, the sea, not to mention the increase in people, roads, cars, traffic buildup on the Second Narrows Bridge. We therefore request coun- cil to reconsider approving such development and. would like the aforementioned areas to remain in their natural: forested state for generations to come. : Carol-Anne Roberts Tony Roberts North Vancouver lows.-The good, upright citizens are _ of Indian affairs, Ron Irwin, to Trixi Agrios ' Promotions Manager ‘ 985-2131 (218) Valorie Stophenson . - Classified Manager 286-6222 (202). 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