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Ban smoking, not the walking trails

I am writing from the perspective of someone who uses the off-leash trails behind the Qualicum Beach Civic Centre to walk my dog every day

I am writing from the perspective of someone who uses the off-leash trails behind the Qualicum Beach Civic Centre to walk my dog every day, along with hundreds of others (all of us highly respectful of the current dire situation) who have now been displaced because of the ban on using any “maintained” trails within our district.

Fortunately, though, we are told we can still use the “unmaintained” trails — you know, those trails with the Teflon trees and Kevlar grasses.

As I walked this morning with some friends and our dogs on an “unmaintained” trail, surrounded by vast meadows of waist-high, yellow grass and acres of parched forest, my mind boggled at the logic of forcing dog and pleasure-walkers to scatter to far larger and just as tinder-dry areas of Qualicum in their pursuit of some exercise and outdoor enjoyment.

And please tell me why 99 per cent of the people who enjoy the trails of our town have to be put out by the one per cent who insist on smoking and playing with fire under the current conditions? Would it not make more sense to simply ban smoking for the duration?

An unrealistic suggestion, you say? Not nearly as unrealistic as expecting the closure of all maintained trails to prevent human-caused fires in Qualicum Beach, regardless of whether those trails are “maintained” or “unmaintained.”

Lenore LeitchQualicum Beach