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November 1 2013 www.newwestnewsleader.com
respondents to government consultation on B.C.’s liquor laws are saying selling booze in grocery stores is worth a look, says the MLA in charge. See Page A11
Petition aims to save Thrifty Foods mario bartel
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mArIo bArTeL/NeWSLeADer
Gavin Wishart takes in the view from the living room window of his float home in Queensborough. He says living on the water “is like heaven” after he moved eight years ago from a high-rise condo in Yaletown.
Float home living ‘idyllic’ says convert mario bartel
photo@newwestnewsleader.com
Gavin Wishart loved the hustle and bustle of living in a Yaletown condo. But when he realized he couldn’t visit a friend on another floor in the same building without traveling all the way downstairs then getting buzzed in through the front door, his downtown lifestyle began feeling more like a high-rise prison. So eight years ago he moved to a float home in Queensborough. “I liked being downtown, but
this is like heaven,” says Wishart, who’s retired from his career in architecture and construction management. Wishart says a move by the city to amend its community plan for Queensborough to curtail any more float homes along the foreshore flies in the face of creating environmentally friendly, inviting communities. That’s what Wishart says he discovered when he and his wife fled the concrete jungle. Their first float home in an
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enclave of about a half dozen homes and boats was only 800 square feet, but they since moved to a larger 1,800-square-foot residence that Wishart is currently renovating. On a sunny fall afternoon the views are stunning, up the Annacis Channel, past the skyline of condo towers along New Westminster’s waterfront to the Golden Ears Mountains. A swan swoops in for a clumsy landing. A lone kayaker paddles by, one of Wishart’s neighbours enjoying the warm weather.
“It’s idyllic,” says Wishart, who regularly sees eagles, seals, a beaver that maintains a lodge on shore nearby and the occasional fish leaping from the water. “We live in harmony with our environment.” Even the regular midnight passage of a tug pulling a giant log barge Wishart has dubbed “the leviathan” doesn’t diminish the spell. In fact, personal watercraft cause more waves to rock him from his reverie.
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An online petition urging the Competition Bureau to reconsider its decision requiring Sobeys to sell its Thrifty Foods grocery store in Sapperton has surpassed 750 signatures. The petition was started by Sapperton resident Janice Wormald-Twiss after the federal regulator ordered the Halifaxbased company to divest the two-year-old store and 22 others in Western Canada, as part of its $5.6-billion acquisition of Safeway. “All grocery stores are not equal,” reads the petition, which is addressed to John Pecman, the Competition Bureau’s Commissioner, as well as the vice president of communications and corporate affairs at Sobeys, Andrew Walker. “Thrifty’s provides products and services to local residents and workers that no other business in the area offers. They care about who they do business with and supply local, sustainable products.” COMPREHENSIVE EYE EXAMS Single TheVision petition $ Lenses with Frames 3995 suggests Sobeys Bifocal Vision $ Lenses with 69to95 should beFrames required Progressive Vision $ sell one of its Safeway Lenses with Frames 9995 *some restrictions apply stores instead.
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