4-

Bob Hunter

® strictly personal @

I’M NOT sure who’s running the Playland complex at
the PN, but they had better shape up before they go

broker.

Taking my family down there
a couple of weckends ago, |
almost had a fit waiting in line to
get in. The thing is set up like a
country fair at a town with a
population of a few thousand,
rather than being an enterprise
supposedly catering to the Lower
Mainland.

There were two booths, with
two ticket sellers each. There
were about 200 people in a line-
up that took nearly 30 minutes to
get through. Thirty minutes,
standing there with kids? Just to
get in? Come on.

At the booth, we were can-
fronted with a choice of a $2
ticket each to get onto the
grounds, or an all-day pass for
$14.95. We didn’t want to stay
all day, so, at the risk of having
to get into further line ups buy-
ing individual tickets for the
rides, we opted to go the two-
buck route.

Inside, there was just one other
booth where you bought tickets
in blocks of 30, which seemed like
a lot, for a mere $15. One quick-
ly discovered that even kiddies
rides required three and somie-
times five tickets.

As we wandered along the
midway, my boy, Willie, wanted
to try knocking over mounted
plates with a baseball. Well, he
hit the plate with his first shot,
but the plate was plastic. and
bent, instead of breaking, so he

re

didn't get a prize.

Our two year old, Emily,
screamed her brains out because
she wasn’t allowed to come when
Willie and | went on the Rainbow
Ride and the Vega Il and the
aerial merry-go-round.

But there were plenty of little
boats that splashed around in a
tub and little cars that clunked
along a wooden roadway.

She had to be accompanied on
all of these by her bored-looking
eight-year-old brother, who
wanted to get on with the scary
stuff.

A giant Garfield the Cat came
waddling along. Awestruck, Emi-
ly rushed over to say hello but
the guy inside the costume
couldn't see down far enough
over his stomach to where she
was, so she almost got trundled
on.
There was, of course, ice
cream. Alas, there was a line up
you wouldn’t believe. Mom
braved it while Dad changed his
mind about the video camera and
decided to nip back to the car to
get it.

It takes longer than Dad would
like to get back o:io the grounds,
but no matter, herc he is, focuss-
ing on cute little Emily with her
double scoop of strawberry.

Alas, Dad is not quite ready to
shoot, when, tilt, both scoops
plop on the cement, and the most
classic kid-losing-her-ice-cream

expression in human history ap-
pears on Emily's face.

But Dad misses it —- the home
video shot of the century! — and
is plunged into existential gloom.

Valiantly, Dad pressed on for a
good hour, videotaping the kids
on this, the kids on that, Mom
waving from the sidelines in a
spasm of mother-ecstasy, etc.

Only to discover — brace
yourself for the horror of this,
I'm warning you — when we try
to play this marvellous stuff at
home later, the tape had got
stuck and we have...nothing.
Nothing! (‘Dad's using the F-
word again, Mom."’)

I had spotted about a dozen
other video-bearers on the
Playland grounds, by the way.
We all nodded approvingly at
each other's gear. Points go, of
course, to the person with the
newest, i.e., smallest unit. Ours is
a year old and therefore slightly
out of date.

As we had our little adven-
tures, [ kept noticing that it was

hard to get many of the atten- §

dants to take our tickets. Being a
scrupulously honest fellow,
unless too terribly tempted, I ac-
tually had to go after them to get
them to accept payment.

Weird.

I shake my head about the dif-
ficulty of finding good staff.

It wasn’t until the roller coast-
er ride, the most expensive of the
lot, at $2.50 a head, that I real-
ized something was definitely
amiss. No one was taking tickets

at all. There were three staff, and

they just weren't interested.

So we rode on the roller coast-
er and several other rides for
free. I just threw the tickets away
later.

It was hardly compensation for
losing all that fabulous video
footage, but it did remind me of
the frailty of corporate enter-
prises, even such eternal winners

as a family fair. Almost anything.

can be mis-managed.

XY —f/*

AT ALL NORTH SHORE

Fires extinguished at

Vancotver

FIREFIGHTERS were twice called
to the scene of Vancouver Wharves
Wednesday to ut out three
unrelated fire incidents.

Chief Leo lus, of North Van-
couver District Fire Department,
said at 9:05 a.m. a fire crew was
called to berth five at the wharves
because a front-end loader had
caught fire in the sulphur storage
area.

lus said there was considerable
damage to the $350,000 loader, but
the damage cstimate is not yet
known.

Around 12:40 p.m. firefighters
returned to berth five after the
conveyor system caught fire, with
several small spot fires in the

Wharves

sulphur pile.

The third incident, happened at
the entrance of Vancouver
Wharves, where sulpher in an open
rail car caught fire.

Two employees of Vancouver
Wharves were overcome by smoke
and taken to Lions Gate Hospital
for observation. They were releas-
cd that same day.

Jus said he believes it was a
coincidence that the fires all occur-
red at Vancouver Wharves the
same day.

lus said ithe spot sulpher fires
were difficult to extinguish because
they were difficult to see in the
daylight. He said at night these
fires are easier to see because they
glow in the dark.

rere etree eee eee eee

Name
Address

Postal Code

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