Harbour Spiel Online

October 2017 editorial: And... it's over

Brian Lee

 It’s three weeks past Labour Day and I’m still sighing with relief from the departed crowds. I know I’ll be whacking my testicles with a pipe wrench in January to distract myself from the monotony of a Pender Harbour winter but, for now, who doesn’t enjoy September’s sudden serenity?

After the U.S. dropped its economic hush on the planet in 2008, things looked bleak for this place. I resolved that if our economy ever bounced back, I wouldn’t be so quick to complain about the pace of development again. And I haven’t — I’m excited about changes that are taking place and welcome the economic optimism. Growth doesn’t come painlessly but I’ve accepted that it’s better than the bleak alternative of closing schools.

Still, if the secret really is out about this place, we need to prepare for those sacrifices and challenges that come with popularity. In July, 66,528 cars travelled from Langdale to Horseshoe Bay. That’s an eight-per-cent increase over July 2016, which was a 4.22-per-cent increase over July 2015.

In August, I travelled to Vancouver on a Wednesday morning and arrived at the terminal over 90 minutes before the sailing. I was nine cars from getting on with a hundred or more behind me. I accept the hazard of overloads on a weekend but I’ve been hitting the same Wednesday in August for 11 years and have seen nothing like it.

The service we rely on to access the rest of the world no longer requires a tweak to the schedule — we clearly need more capacity. Luckily, for the first time since his 2005 election, our MLA, Nicholas Simons, is also a member of the governing party. But even after Mr. Simons fixes the ferries, the growing traffic volume is sure to trigger nostalgia for a time when summer was more ... leisurely.

When you could roll into Dan Bosch park for a picnic and the whole family could find a spot on the beach to lay out towels. Or find a parking spot in Madeira Park.

Or take some time off. Our acute shortage of long-term rental housing has left many businesses short-staffed during the summer. An abundance of employment should be cheered but I couldn’t help but notice that it often showed in the faces of overworked service staff.

Short-term vacation rentals are blamed for the LTR problem but they satisfy a hungry market. Those guests are the reason you saw full cashier lines at the IGA or needed reservations for dinner at LaVerne’s Grill. There are over 250 STRs operating in Pender Harbour and Egmont (story p. 9) but I didn’t talk to one hotelier this summer who wasn’t close to fully booked. That tells me we don’t have enough traditional accommodation to meet demand.

With the reality of PODS, that shortage might inspire a savvy developer to give up on Gibsons and build a George Hotel here.That would have sounded preposterous a few years ago but the pace of change has shifted once again and we must adapt.

We don’t have a choice.

 

Harbour Spiel October 2017 issue

Download Harbour Spiel October 2017 issue

September 2017 editorial: What do do about those filty smokers?

Brian Lee

Until recently, I haven’t had much sympathy for smokers. They didn’t need it anyways because, at one time, just about everybody smoked — my entire family, all the cool kids, even hockey heroes like Guy Lafleur.

And they could smoke anywhere, so they did. Recall the freestanding metal ashtrays that sat in the middle of each row of seats on the old ferries. Or airplanes with ashtrays installed in the seating armrests. Smokers were the ruling class and even if you didn’t smoke, you tolerated them.

But then smoking became socially unacceptable. Smokers were forced out of buildings and on to the street to feed their addiction. The rest of us cheered. Emboldened by the public’s support, authorities then banned smoking in parks and other public areas.

As much as I appreciate clean air, I felt sorry for the miserable things, huddled outside doorways tempting hypothermia for a hit of nicotine. Then they took the doorways away.

We build temples to consume alcohol and safe injection sites for IV drug users but you need an iPhone app to find a place for a smoke break. It seems a bit unfair.

Now, BC Ferries has announced it will ban smoking from ships and terminals entirely. It may be just a bit of pre-emptive hysteria to control the hordes of potheads expected on the upper decks after the legalization of marijuana, but smokers will suffer for it. Whether it works remains to be seen — addicts won’t always obey posted signs when a craving hits.

I can imagine the relief it might be to reach the ferry terminal and hop out of a car full of yelping kids for a butt after a day of driving in the city. And, if you’re a smoker who works on a ferry, do you quit, or just quit?

But each time I start to feel like this — like the war on them has been taken too far — I’ll hear about another dumbass smoker starting a forest fire. In July, BC Wildfire Service estimated that about half of the wildfires reported in BC were human-caused. A good portion of those were from discarded cigarette butts.

If smokers caused even 10 per cent of the fires in BC this year, they have destroyed 86,000 hectares, sent 19 million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and cost the province $38 million. A tossed cigarette butt may have started a fire on the McNeill Lake forest road last month (see photo p. 9). I find them everywhere — parks, beaches, parking lots and even local golf greens.

It seems clear that smokers unconsciously flick their finished butts. If that is the case, smokers are more hazardous than texting drivers during our increasingly dry summers.

So, what can be done? Surely they don’t all flick their butts but since we can’t tell which ones do, I propose that all smokers should be rounded up each spring and held in a facility until the rains return.

And the best part? Mexico will pay for it.

 

Harbour Spiel September 2017 issue

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