Bok Hunter ®@ strictly personal @ BY COINCIDENCE, just as the B.C. government’s Li- quor Policy Review Board set to work trying to figure out what to do about our Alice in Wonderland drinking laws, I happened to be swearing off booze. Obviously, 1’m in the midst of a liquor policy review of my own. Or rather, the review is done. We're implementing policy. This isn’t the first time it’s happened. It won’t be the last. It just happens to be for the longest period yet in ‘my adult life. Awright! Let’s hear it for Old Dry Lips. Haven’t had a drink for a whole month. Whoopty-do! Hope to go six months just to dry the liver out, you know. Demonstrate a bit of wil! power. Get into exercise and dieting. Get rid of the beer belly. Try out a different lifestyle for a while. All those sort of Y-word cliches. Might. just check out the reaij world while I’m at it, see wat it’s like — that sort of thing. A little joke. | ‘I’m one of those people who drinks. more than the health ‘books: say you’re supposed to. | But that’s not the problem. The problem is sometimes not remembering anything beyond a certain point. Oh, it’s. all good fun. | reportedly remain amusing and gregarious right up to the end. Moreover, if questioned, I argue calmly and sardonically that I'm in perfect control, and I often we succeed in looking alert, in possession of my senses. Sometimes, I swear, I’m there! But sometimes [’m not. Some- times I’m completely blotted. The next morning, if still alive, I may only have recall up to a point rather early in the evening. The grudging acknowl- edgement that this is indeed the case has forced me to reappraise my own attitude toward booze and certain activities. I have come to the conclusion, for instance, that it is fundamen- tally criminal for me to drive to any place where I'm going to drink, let alone drive from there. A public review board is now looking into the question of values. It’s about time. There is ob- vious madness going on. 1 think — I’m hoping — that the pattern for drastic change has been firmly established by what has happened with anti-smoking bylaws. Draconian rules clearly discriminating against smokers have been pushed through everywhere, Trudeau charter notwithstanding. There have been grumblings and a few yelps from smokers, but mostly they have only whimpered. So long as smoke only hurt the smoker, there was no groundswell of support for Our Hanging Basket Collections inciude: 1 Upright Geranium and 5 Hanging Plants . for only *398 anti-smoking measures. Once it became clear we were all being hurt, the minority of offenders were simply over- powered on all political fronts. This is where majority rule comes in. A similar turning point is com- ing in terms of booze, ['m fairly sure. It can all happen at a few strokes of the legislative pen. And under Mr. Vander Zalm, who knows anyway? The drink- ing age could be pushed back to 21. There could be ferocious penalties for drunk driving. Most significantly of all, the various police agencies could be directed to actually dry up the streets. That is, they might get serious about targeting boozers. it is infuriating to see the RCMP displaying a fetish for speeding tickets, but largely turn- ing a blind eye to alcohol. Some- body has to be pulling my leg, setting up multi-car radar traps at 9'a.m. on a Saturday morning at a major interchange. Where were these traps at 2 a.m. the night before as the last cars began to prowl away from local drinkeries? A few mass busts outside the big parking lots outside hotels at closing time and some kind of a message would get through, wouldn't it? A reader, Doug Christie (not the separatist lawyer), muses: ‘‘If we truly cared about traffic deaths, there would be a BAT- mobile outside of two or three bars EVERY NIGHT, to the point where no one would ever think of driving after drinking in any bar.”’ And that IS the question. How serious are the police about nab- bing drinking drivers? Thinking about it soberly, for a change, I can’t help favoring tightening, rather than loosening, the screws. It all depends on your perspective, doesn’t it? Mine’s dry at the moment. Sorry. I’m a traitor to the cause. Court decision clears way for WV developer A SUPREME Court decision April 24 has cleared the way for West Vancouver's Cal Investments Ltd. to proceed with an $80 million ad- dition to its Metrotown Centre be- ing built in Burnaby. The West Vancouver company took Burnaby council to court after council voted Jan. 26 to freeze Cal’s second stage of development for two years. The decision was a reversal of a vote one week earlier to abolish the development freeze. Cal, with financial backing from Manulife, completed ‘the first phase of its shopping centre in September !986, and planned to complete phase two, which in- cludes addition of The Bay and 100 other retail outlets, by the summer of 1988, 3RD ANNUAL ASPARAGUS ESTIVAL és ENDS MAY Sth North van store open 9 am to 9pm, Mon.thru Fri. and 9 am to 6 pm, Sat. & Sun. West Van store open 7 days a week 9 am to 6 pm NORTH VAN 4343 LYNN VALLEY RD 985-1784 SS < tynn Valley Road oy oe WEST VAN 2558 HAYWOOD AVE 922-2613 : | Haywood Ave. lé Ss | 2k fa Marlne Or.