Hooray for recent letter writer Ren Olsen telling it like it is (An inconvenient truth, The NEWS, June 20).
Just look at the the current difficulty in selling a house in Qualicum Beach for confirmation that the community is beginning to fray a bit about the edges.
Who wants to live in a senior citizens’ ghetto that has had all personality, vibrancy and life systematically bleached out of it?
Who will want a downtown that will soon consist primarily of podiatrist offices, estate planners and medical suppliers?
And now, in their drive to remove all colour, taste and fun from the community, the Qualicum Beach puritans have set their sights on their latest victim, a poor, little BBQ outlet on the beach.
Never mind that the occasional waft of mesquite smoke is hardly a public health threat or we would be looking at a community wide ban of outdoor barbecuing.
The amount of emissions from the traffic along the beachfront create more damage in a day than the Texas BBQ will do over the entire season.
Never mind that this additional outlet will make the beachfront a little more interesting and convenient for residents, young families, teens and visitors. That is precisely why the Qualicum Beach puritans, and their allies on town council, are against it.
Somehow, they have convinced many of us that without their constant vigilance and obstructionist tactics we will have a big box store on every corner, panhandlers in front of our doctor’ offices, long-haired teenagers with tattoos hanging around Memorial and Fern and children’s laughter in the streets.
I, also, am a 75-year-old codger who is not quite ready for a retirement home, but who would like to be able to sell my home to pay for a good one when the time comes. And while there is still life in me I would like to live in a community that has life in it.
Ewan Cotterill
Qualicum Beach