Making His Pitch
FRIDAY May 22, 2015 • www.langleytimes.com
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OPINION Farmland Gobbled Up
Man beaten over stolen jeans, say witnesses
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BUSINESS Fort Langley Goes Underground
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SPORTS Trading Slippers for Skates
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Meet You at the Market
MO N I Q U E TA M M I N G A Ti m e s Re po r t e r
Horrified onlookers say a man suspected of being homeless was ‘brutally assaulted’ outside the Value Village store in Langley City over a stolen pair of jeans on Tuesday, May 12. Witness Sue Bentley was just leaving the store with her daughter when a fight broke out behind them. “It was so shocking and so horrible,” said Bentley. A loss prevention officer allegedly tackled the man to the ground, repeatedly putting him in a choke hold and the scuffle ensued for some time, said several witnesses. “A crowd had formed around them and we were all asking the security guard to let him go, but he wouldn’t.” It was seniors day and very busy. Bentley’s daughter Helen said the loss prevention officer knocked the man down on the ground so hard his head hit the concrete with a thud. “I offered to pay for the jeans but the guy just wouldn’t stop beating on him,” said Helen. They are worried about the wellbeing of the injured man who may be suffering a concussion and other injuries. It doesn’t appear he was looked at by paramedics. Another man who videotaped the incident said the loss prevention officer smashed the homeless man’s face into the ground and he looked like he was”’hurt bad.” Continued Page 4
D A N FE R GUS ON Langley Time s
Nicole and Christina Courvoisier from Trommel Greenhouses served Darren Monette, who came with his dog Pippi to opening day of the Langley Community Farmer’s Market at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. The market will run each Wednesday afternoon throughout the summer, with a range of local producers participating from week to week.
Few tourists used Langley visitor centre THREE OUT OF FOUR PEOPLE WERE LOCAL RESIDENTS LOOKING TO LEAVE TOWN DAN FERGUSON Times Reporter
A now-closed drop-in centre for tourists visiting the Langleys was drawing mostly local people looking to leave town, not outof-towners wanting to visit. A majority of the people who went to the visitors centre at the Langley Events Centre (LEC) were looking for help planning trips to other destinations, Tourism Langley statistics show. “We discovered that over 75 per cent of
visitors coming into the Visitor Centre were local residents looking for information and brochures to plan their trips outside of Langley,” a recent Tourism Langley highlights newsletter revealed. The article did not say how many visitors attended the centre. The newsletter was emailed to Township council members and the mayor in April. Tourism Langley recently closed the visitors centre at the LEC and moved to a second-storey office at E206-20159 88 Ave. The office is no longer open to visitors.
Staff are now said to be focusing efforts online, where most of the queries from non-residents have been coming. When the move was announced, Christina Marchand, Tourism Langley destination sales and marketing manager, said the agency was reaching out to potential visitors rather than waiting for them to come to Langley. “We are not the traditional visitor centre anymore,” Marchand said. “We are offering all of our services online.”
That includes the Tourism Langley website and social media like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Plans include an outreach program that targets “high traffic locations and events.” According to available disclosure reports, the not-for-profit Tourism Langley is largely funded through a hotel tax that accounts for three-quarters of its $500,000 annual budget, with most of the rest coming from government grants and contracts. — with files from Monique Tamminga