NEWS photo Cindy Goodman

PAUL SCHMID swept glass from his basement suite after a runaway truck made an unplanned stop at a house located on the corner of Argyle Avenue and 18th Street Monday afternoon in West Vancouver. According to a West Vancouver Police spokesman, the driver of the truck had parked the vehicte by a bank near 18th Street and Marine Drive. The truck began to roll. A 37- year-old North Vancouver woman, who was sitting in the passenger seat, suffered !eg injuries when she jumped from the truck near Bellevue Avenue. Damage to the truck is estimated at ap- proximately $8,000. The house sustained approximately $15,000 in damage.

Gypsy moth bounty rejected

Proposed $5,000 offer for moth egg masses dropped

A PROPOSAL to offer up to $5,000 in reward money to a moth sleuth able to locate Asian gypsy moth egg masses

locally has been rejected. Agriculture Canada officials considered the bounty offer last week. The idea arose from a Feb. 17 North Vancouver discussion of the impact the local aerial spray- ing of .the insecticide Bacillus

thuringiensis kurstaki (Bt) would -

have on indigenous butterflies and moths. :

Individual Asian gypsy moths have been trapped in West and North Vancouver. Individual gyp- sy moths have been trapped in various North Shore locations

: each year since 1988. But egg . masses have yet to be found local-

ly. The Asian strain of the moth,

brought to the area abdoard . freighters from Siberia, has been

,

By Michael Becker News Reporter

masses from another infected area in order to claim the prize.

“More harm than good could be done if eggs were mishandled and insects escaped into the local environment.”

Poxell said egg masses could likely be secured in the eastern areas of Canada or the United States.

“It’s a different strain of the moth, but the eggs would be very similar,’’ he said.

Powell offers other reasons why Agriculture Canada wants people

Photo submitted

INDIVIDUAL GYPSY moths have been trapped in various. North Shore locations each year since 1988.

known to eat more than 400 types of plants and trees, including oak and some types of needle-bearing trees.

Said Gordon Powell, Asian gypsy moth project manager for the B.C. Plant Protection Adviso- ry Council, ‘‘Reluctantly we decided against this proposal since it also became apparent that the bounty could prove attractive to someone ingenious and thoughtless enough to import egg

to familiarize themselves with gypsy moth egg masses and cat- erpillars.

“This pest can do serious harm to landscape plantings, ornamen- tal trees, and, should the popula- tion become large enough, it will be a repulsive, unwelcome guest at their outdoor events.”

The provincial environment ministry has yet to approve a permit to allow the spraying pro- gram to go ahead.

44 This pest can do serious harm ... it will be a repulsive, unwelcome guest at outdoor events. 99

- Gordon Powell, B.C. Plant Protection Advisory Council

But said Powell, ‘‘We are in the process of going out for tenders or proposals on the actual spray applications.”

The permit application process includes a period of appeal in which those opposed to the pro- gram can challenge the spraying.

West Vancouver resident Fran- cis Barthropp intends to challenge the permit.

Said Barthropp, ‘‘I’m terrified of being sprayed. My apprehen- sion is that not long enough has passed for us to be sure that it’s a safe product to spray on human beings. I’ve got no objections to it being sprayed on uninhabited forested areas.’’

A $5 million aerial assault of the moth is tentatively set for mid-April, weather permitting. If approved, the program would be the first large-scale aerial ap- plication of Bt over a populated area in North America. Approxi- mately 43,000 acres throughout the North Shore, Burnaby and Vancouver are targetted for aerial spraying.

Barthropp estimates, based on maximum allowable dosages for Bt, that 61,239 imperial gallons of the bacterial insecticide could be dropped.

Expert opinion deems the prob- ability of mutation of the bacillus as low. But because it is a living organism, the potential for mutagenic change exists.

Said Barthropp, ‘‘Obviously the law of probability predicts that at some point this bacillus will mutate, that's what the experts are warning. Once you do things on a very big scale over an urban area, your odds are shortened.

For more information about the Asian gypsy moth call 666- MOTH.

Wednesday, March 4, 1992 - North Shore News — 3

Former lawyer faces income tax

fraud charges Clientele included NHL players

THE MULTI-MILLION dollar tax evasion trial of Gor- don Hazlewood has been adjourned until March 9, at which time the former West Vancouver lawyer says he will act in his own defence in B.C. Supreme Court.

Hazlewood, whose run-ins with Revenue Canada date back to 1987, has been charged with 269 counts of income tax evasion and claiming fraudulent tax losses sold on a joint venture basis totalling $20 million.

“We first looked into Mr. Hazlewood’s activities in 1985, and obtained search warrants for his business records two years later,’’” says Juergen Leske, a Revenue Canada special in- vestigator. ‘‘The trial was origi- nally set for last November, but Supreme Court rescheduled it for Jan. 28."°

Since then Revenue Canada has presented the court with a mind- boggling array of allegations revolving around Hazlewood's alleged ‘‘four-for-one’’ joint ven- ture scheme, which attracted in- vestors with the promise that their investments would be returned four times over in tax losses and refunds.

Among Hazlewood’s clientele were several National Hockey League players, including Win- nipeg Jets’ Thomas Steen, former Vancouver Canucks captain Kevin McCarthy, and fellow former Canucks Patrik Sundstrom, Thomas Gradin, Gary Lupal and Lars Molin.

Steen appeared in court fast Friday and testified how he, Mc- Carthy and Sundstrom had sunk more than $32,000 into Hazlewood’s Sparrow Energy jcint venture scheme because it would provide ‘‘a legitimate tax investment loss’’ for the three years of 1982, 1983 and 1984.

By Robin Brunet Contributing Writer

Steen said he personally in- vested $21,000 of his own savings and was going to invest another $96,000 in the scheme before a tax lawyer advised him not to.

While the venture lost money, Steen said Ottawa decided the players couldn’t claim the loss as a deduction.

The monies Hazlewood col- lected from clientele were used, according to Revenue Canada, to finance his business operations and his daughter’s company, Diamond Auto Leasing Ltd.

The monies — approximately $1.6 million — were not used to fund any joint-venture operations, according to Revenue Canada.

“Taxpayers who bought into the alleged joint ventures were told the monies would all be used for oil and gas exploration, the development of a glass-washing machine, the development of a racquetball club in Richmond, a mining project in the Yukon, and a photocopier toner business,” says Leske.

To augment Revenue Canada’s case against Hazlewood, an RCMP forensic expert was called by the Crown to show that certain alleged joint venture agreements contained fraudulent signatures.

Various principals of the joint ventures have testified that they never entered into such activities either with Hazlewood or his companies.

Death follows quarrel in N. Van’s Cates Park

A 21-YEAR-OLD Van- couver man died Sunday evening after an argu- ment between a man and a woman ended with the couple leaping into the waters of Burrard Inlet at Cates Park in North Vancouver.

According to witnesses at the scene the victim, who is believ- ed to have drowned, died in an attempt to rescue his girlfriend who had jumped into the water before him.

The deceased, Rajesh Krishna, and his girlfriend, Ashwin Singh, had been quar- relling at Cates Park after a day spent crab fishing with a group of friends.

Said North Vancouver RCMP Set. D. Dealziel,

‘*There was a quarrel. The girl ran down and jumped in. The’ victim, he jumped over her head. The friends pulled the girl out, and the other fellow just went down.”” — - ‘

The police were called to the scene at approximately 6:15

p.m.

An RCMP dive team, the Canadian Coast Guard vessel Osprey, the Deep Cove-based North Shore Lifeboat Society rescue boat and private vessels searched for Krishna.

His body was eventually re- covered by divers near a dock at approximately 9:30 p.m.

The cause of death has yet to be determined.

Said Dealzie!, ‘‘But it’s pret- ty cold water though, you’re looking at hypothermia pretty quick.”’

® Lifestyles @ North Shore Now @ Dr. Ruth

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