INDEX Classified Ads Doug Coilins Editorial Page Entertainment Home & Garden.... Bob Hunter Lifestyles Mailbox Movie Listings Weather: Friday and Saturday, cloudy with periods of rain. Highs near 9° C. TV tistings. . What's Going On Management Vridas. Petraes 13, YON7 RESTAURANT LOSES THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS Water main work disrupts businesses WORK ON THE $4.9 million overhaul to the Capilano water main is drying up area business, according to Up- per Capilano restaurant owners. “irs costing me about $1,000 per day." Canyon) Gardens owner Ray Marinakis said Mon- day. Friday and Saturday night Pousually do beoween $8,000 and $6,000, but this past weekend it was down to $2,000. Hts ridieu- lous. People just don't want to cross that mess."* The water main improvement project’ began Jan. 21 and is scheduled to be completed in April. Excavation to install the Hy TIMOERY R News Reporte 78-inch welded steel pipe pirallel to Capilano Read from Edge- mont Boulevard to Marine Drive has consequently forced tralfic detours around the Canyon Gardens and the Hobbit House Restaurant, both of which front on to Capilano Road, Marinakis said his water supp- ly was cut for four hours during oue phase of the onstallation, “and Ttold them that can't ran a restaurant without water, but what cain vou de?" Hobbit House owner Paul BRerrettom: said his business has been down 60 to 700 per cent because of the cone cuction and because the required access to his resturant was not provided by ABS Contracting Ltd.. the pro- ject’s contractor, He said the Hobbit House was “cut off from the rest of the world’’ for four days while work was being done in front of his restaurant and that supply tracks and customers were turned away North stare News gets jaid off at Versatile VERSATILE PACIFIC Shipyards Inc. has laid off 23 of its upper management staff. Wednesday’s announcement follows staff layoffs last week that trimmed 37 per cent from the North Vancouver shipyard’s 150-member office staff and left Versatile with about one-sixth of its trades personnel. Thirteen Versatile management personnel from the company’s North Vancouver yard and 10 from its Victoria yard were given severance notice in the most recent layoffs. Versatile Pacific president David Alsop said the decision was ‘‘very difficult, very unpleasant.”’ Experience with the company of those laid off, he said, ranged from a couple of years all the way up to 30 years. He added that all had been advised to consider the layoffs as permanent. ‘We have lost some key experi- ence and capabilities,’’ he said. According to a company state- ment, the layoffs followed a review of the company’s current workload and contractual commitments. The company, it stated, would begia to rebuild if and when it was awarded the $400 million Polar Class 8 icebreaker contract. Government spokesman Tom Van Dusen has said the federal government has been ‘leaning towards Versatile’, but will nui award the icebreaker contract to By TIMOTHY RENSHAW News Reporter the company until the financial problems of its corporate parent Versatile Corp. have been solved. Alsop has said the Jan. 31 sale of Versatile Corp.’s Eastern Ca- nadian shipbuilding assets is the first step in making Versatile Pacific a separate financial entity from Versatile Corp. Even if Versatile does win the Polar 8 award, it will take between 18 months and two years before there is any actual construction work on the project at the North Vancouver shipyard. Alsop said he was confident the North Vancouver yard could retain key skills if it had the Polar 8 con- tract and would, in the meantime, rely on ship repair and continue diversification into heavy industry. Marine Workers and Boiler- makers Industrial Union president John Fitzpatrick said Feb. 4 only 109 of about 600 union members who normally work at Versatile were still working at the shipyard. The union represents about 70 per cent of Versatile’s workforce. Earlier this year, 232 MWBIU members were laid off at the ship- yard following the Jan. 3 launch of the 327-foot Henry Larsen icebreaker. NEWS photo Tom Burley MARTY, the Fhone Mart robot, does double time at Tuesday's Business After Business networking event displaying a copy of the North Shore News to News display advertising director Linda Stewart. The event held at Capilano Mall, drew over 200 in attendance. restaurant has dropped by 60 per cent. NEWS photo Stuart Davis CANYON GARDENS Restaurant owner Ray Maricakis stands in front of the water main overhaul work on Capilano Koad that has forced a traffic detour away from his restaurant. Marin.\kis says ac- cess to the Canyon Gardens has been disrupted and business at the by flagmen. Restaurant manager Richard Raffaelli said the Hobbit House is emploving about half the staff it normally does at this time of year. “Look, we know the pipe has to go in, we're not complaining about that,’* Berrettoni said, **we just think it could have been or- ganized better." But ABS president Ed Van Geel suid Wednesday access to the Hobbit House and the Can- yon Gardens was never cut off, ‘Sv’s just not true, We are doing the best we can but we have a limited space to work in. We are required to provide access to traffic one way during the day and we have done that. There has always been access.”* Van Geel said he had in- structed the two restaurants to place signs at either end of the detour barricades indicating they were open. He added that work in front of the two restaurants should be finished by Friday and the road paved by the weekend. More businesses will be af- fected by water main overhaul when work progresses south to Marine Drive. Greater Vancouver Water District spokesman Tom Heath said, with the magnitude of the project, there were bound to be inconveniences. He said work on the project, which is progressing at about 200 feet per day, should become somewhat easier and traffic flow less disrupted as it moves south on Capilano, ‘‘because we will pick up an extra lane (in the toad).”’ He estimated work at the south end of Capilano will take about three weeks. lovers and shakers meet at Business After Business LOCAL BUSINESS mixed with pleasure at the fifth installment of Business After Business Tuesday. Capilano Mall’s dramatic cascading waterfall “and totem display set the tone for the 200 in attendance to network with 40 participating display firms. A jazz trio, a man in a rubber mask on stilts, a plate-tossing juggler, Miss Capilano Mall, the Cap Mall raccoon, the Phone Mart robot, and a bevy of smiling hostesses bearing food-laden trays filled in the picture. Old connections were renewed, new connections made, and deals were cinched. The event was hosted by the North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce and co-sponsored by Capilano Mall and the North Shore News. “The event provided a great opportunity for us to reaffirm our commitment to the community and also support a unique forum for business communication on the North Shore,’’ said North Shore News publisher Peter Speck. “It’s more than a ‘hello, here’s my brochure and card,’” said Fyfe Brown, Business After Business coordinator. ‘‘You have to learn how to network and work at it. “Once you begin to talk to people, it’s just amazing to find what people need, what they can offer, and where you can fit in,’’ she said. Tel-Ex’perts Vancouver owner Ted White was one of the many firms participating with a display table. ‘*We tend to be a lower profile company here on the North Shore because the majority of our business is in Vancouver. We were here nine months ago and met with good response,”’ said White who was featur- ing the latest in facsimile machines at a display table. The North Vancouver-based company competes with CNCP Telecommunications and has built up a 2,000 member client base representing 25 per cent of the local telecommunications market since its incep- tion in 1979. The event was catered by Rally Point’s Heinz and John Reinhard. Honorable mentions go to North Vancouver Chamber’s Peggy Pitt-Brooke, Grace Jetty, Carol Joyner, Craig Clark, Graham Reid; Capilano Mall’s Phil McArthur, Gary Leamons; North Shore News’ Peter «Speck, Larry Christie, Linda Stewart, Val Stephenson, Noel Wright, Barrett Fisher and Janice Silver.