€ - Sunday, January 19, 1992 - North Shore News .. A PROVINCE. . WHERE You CAN _ SEE FoR MILES WitHouT THE. INSIGHTS THe. SIGHT OF PARKS AND FORESTS PRESERVED... I SEE WATERSHEDS UNTAINTED... um... EXCUSE ME... 1 SEEM TO BE HAVING ALITTLE. TRouBLE SEEING. NEWS VIEWPOINT Butts out good health. Jan. 20 to 26 has been designated national non-smoking week, and it should be the start of national non-smoking year -and national non-smoking life for all those in the clutches of demon nicotine. Health, social and financial pressures are slowly reducing the numbers of adult smokers in Canada: currently 31% of adult Canadians are regular smokers com- pared with 49% in 1966. The figures are encouraging, leaving an ever-diminishing number of slow learners on the tobacco rolls. But the fight against smoking is shifting to the nation’s youth, who. are all too easily impressed with the mystique and twisted allure of a smolder- ing cigarette. [= TIME to butt out for everbody’s According to figures from the Canadian Council on Smoking and Health, 20% of 12- to 17-year-olds smoke an average of 14 cigarettes a day; gad 8% of 10- to 14- year-olds smoke daily. Those figures represent a lot of young lives being prematurely polluted and a lot of children sowing the seeds of future health problems. Close to 40,000 Canadians a year cur- rently die from smoking-related illnesses, about 20% of ail deaths in the country. The cost of smoking to our health system is astronomical. And the earlier people start smoking the more serious smoking’s effects, both on them and. the rest of us. So butt out, for your own good and for everyone else’s. NEWS QUOTES OF THE WEEK “I guess they’ve already paid the price,”’ North Vancouver District Ald. Rick Buchols, on news that the district licence fee for a spayed or neutered dog will remain at $13. “It may well take a team of horses to move me out of Van- couver.”* Capilano Mall genera! manager Richard Wood, on moving to Vancouver. “The east coast shipyards got sev- erance packages from the yards Publisher . Managing Editor . Associate Editor. . Advertising Director . Comptrotler North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified . Peter Speck _ Timothy Renshaw . Noel Wright _ Linda Stewart Doug Foot and the federal government. We have nothing, just empty prom- ises. We're calling for a public in- quiry, we're getting a royal screw- ing.’’ Unemployed Versatile Ship- yards’ worker Joe Brown, on the issue of severance packages for laid-off Versatile workers. “And then he comes flying back at about $00 miles an hour, full run, jumps into the back seat and scrunches down. I thought, OK, this guy is a little strange, but I’m still not clicking on anything.” Display Advertising 980-0514 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom 985-2131 Sed WORE OF MONTH AMD WEST VLISCOLWER Distribution Subscriptions North Shore taxi driver Suz Reid, describing the events leading up to the arrest of a suspected armed robber who turned out to be a fare in his cab. “I guess it would get better if they’d (police) solve this problem though.” Squamish Nation chief Philip Joe, describing the working rela- tionship between the police and the police theory that a trio of murder suspects is being protected by a band code of silence. 988-1337 Ga 986-1337 985-3227 North Shore managed Administration 985-2131 MEMBER —— under Schedule 111, Paragraph JI) of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed ta every door on the North Shore. Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885. Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per year. Mailing rates available an request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept tesponsibility for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. V7M 2H4 ‘north shore SUNDAY + WEONEEE AY ¢ FRIDAY 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. Wi SN __ 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) Sa SDA DIVISION Entire contents © 1992 North Shore Free Press itd. Alt rights reserved. Thank God for sanity at last on the seawall! HAVING LIVED for 10 years on the West Van Seawalk — well, not exactly ON it, nine storeys immediately above it — I was impressed by reader G.W. Osborne’s solution to its congestion problem (MAILBOX, Jan. 15). He/she is perfectly correct. Watching seawall users at every hour of the day, I can confirm that their behavior is deplorable. Not only are there far too many of them — including foreigners from as far away as Woodcroft, who should never be allowed west of Tayler Way anyhow — but even worse, they’re all clearly ENJOYING themselves. This must stop. No question, Mayor Mark Ssger and his council should move quickly to end such a dangerous, long neglected nuisance with a bylaw incor- porating reader Osborne's eminently reasonable demands — which, you'll recall, are as follows: @ A white lane divider (crossing prohibited!) the length of the Seawalk. A maximum of two walkers abreast westbound and eastbound; @ Minimum walking speed five km/h or 3.125 mph for non- metric seniors. No stopping to talk except in designated areas. Toll booths at both ends, with a $1 charge for West Van residents each time and $5 for foreigners (far too low, I suggest, for wret- ches from the International Plaza, Capilano Road and all other ref- ugees). @ Truncheon-armed police patrols handing tickets to stowpokes, walking threesomes, wayside gossipers and iine- jumpers. @ Money from tolls and fines to be used for double-decking the Seawalk — thereby protecting half the walkers from rain and doubl- ing the revenue (how come you never thought of that, Don Lan- skail?). The benefits promised by reader MAYOR Mark Sager... move quickly. DON LANSKAIL... great oppor- tunity missed. Noe! | Wright HITHER AND YON Osborne's letter are so obvious that I’m surprised he/she didn’t take them a little further. Why not extend the idea to ALL municipal sidewalks, starting with Ambleside and Dundarave shopp- ing blocks? One or two adjustments would be needed, of course. The nar- sower lanes left and right of the white centre line would mean only single walkers permitted in each. Store windows would no longer be needed, since nobody would be allowed to stop and inspect them. Curbside parking would naturally be banned, relieving sidewalk congestioi, still further. . With no window-dressing chofes and many fewer customers to bug thern, surviving merchants would enjoy a far more relaxed life. Cars, being forbidden to stop, could continue using the roadway for free. And the pedes- trian toll booths at each cad of the business strip would give city . hall a rich new source of funds for welfare, police truncheons, ticket pads and other worthy civic projects. Thank you, Mr./Mrs. /Ms. . Osborne, for making my day. I can’t stand the sight of those happy Seawalkers any longer. Just tell me once again you’re in earnest! DATELINES: Guest speaker at the 7:30 p.m. meeting tomorrow, Monday, Jan. 20, of the North Shore Widow's Network in Lons- dale United Church, Osborne and Lonsdale, is Ms. Graeme who'll be talking about ‘‘Self- Realization’’ — for information on the club call 984-8252 ... Golfers and critics won’t want to miss the public meeting of Lynn | Valley Community Assn. Tuesday, Jan. 21, at 7:30 p.m. at Lynn Valley Rec Centre, Frederick and Mountain Highway — where the subject will be committee reports on the proposed Northiands golf course ... And (if he’s anywhere around) happy birthday to former West Van MLA Jolin Reynolds — who today, Jan. 19, celebrates his first half-century. WRIGHT OR WRONG: The nicest thing about being untidy is the exciting discoveries you’re always making. Webster, _