B.C. Views Choosing work instead of welfare. p6
Expert finds cats not killed by humans. p3
THE NEWS
Arts&life All hail the mighty sword. p20
www.mapleridgenews.com Wednesday, June 20, 2012 · Serving Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows · est. 1978 · 604-467-1122 · 50¢
Country Fest is OK with moving But old buildings would likely have to be torn down by Ph i l M e lnych uk staff reporter
Colleen Flanagan/THE NEWS
Elizabeth Taylor (right), with her daughter Garette Osborne, 9, and neighbour Danielle Fotheringhame, stand at the entrance to a trap that was recently set near their houses to catch a bear that has been eating garbage in the area.
Bylaw needed for garbage at a garbage can, then splitting, fast. The black bear, or maybe it’s a few that look like each other, has been in the area of 100B Avenue and 243A Street for a dozen years, says Albion resident Elizabeth Taylor. It’s a nice enough bear, she says. It just seems to mind his own business and does what bears do – constantly scavenge and eat. But Taylor, a former candidate for Maple Ridge council, is getting tired of being the unofficial game warden, or janitor for the area.
Leaving cans outside only endangers bears: resident by Phil M elnyc h u k staff reporter He’s been poking around the back yards of Albion homes for few years now, ambling along green spaces between houses, helping himself to snacks of leftovers that residents temptingly leave at curbside, and at least once, nipping into a garage to get
She’s always cleaning up the remains of the meals and pleading with her neighbours to store their trash inside until garbage pick-up day. “We are so fed up with cleaning up everyone’s garbage. But we don’t want the bear harmed.” Last week, conservation officers left a bear trap in her yard after a panicked neighbour made a phone call. Taylor, though, says Maple Ridge should have a bylaw requiring residents to keep their garbage inside until the morning
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of pick-up. “All these houses, there and no fines for putting out your garbage and no fines for putting recycling in your garbage. “Don’t put out your garbage at night. Put it out in the morning. It would solve a lot of problems.” Maple Ridge’s system of using only private companies to pick up garbage means garbage cans are on the streets three times in one week, as residents follow the schedules for the different companies. See Bears, p3
Opinion Tom Fletcher Arts&life Pet Pages Sports Community Calendar Classifieds
6 6 20 24 27 30 31
What people enjoy about Country Fest, the agricultural fair that’s been going on more than a century in Maple Ridge, is the soft green grass beneath their feet and the tall, leafy trees over head. Those pastoral surroundings, the site of Spencer dairy farm, whose milk house still stands, takes people back to a time they never knew each July, when the farm festival takes place. That soon could disappear under slabs of parking lot pavement and big box concrete, if Maple Ridge Bates council approves a land swap with mall development company Smart Centres. The old 1960s barns and sheds that have grown up around Albion fairgrounds, home not only to Country Fest, but to the Christmas Hamper Society and Ghost Ridge, as well as cadets and minor baseball, all could be bulldozed. In return for acquiring the lush, historic site, Smart Centres would give the District of Maple Ridge its rougher 20 acres on the west side of 105th Avenue, which the Agricultural Land Commission says it won’t allow to be developed. As a result, the fairgrounds and the fair would have to move, while Smart Centres would join the fairgrounds to its existing property for a total of 27 acres of new shopping. “They’ll never be able to move the milk house,” said association manager Lorraine Bates. See Fair, p10
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