Post by jared on Aug 14, 2005 21:55:49 GMT -5
Today, me and some buddies of mine decided to enjoy the awesome weather downtown at city park. The four of us went down to the beach and chilled out and spent the afternoon throwing the ball around and checking out the scenery. Afterwards (about 3 pm on a sunday afternoon) as we walked back to our vehicle which was parked in the parking lot across from the willow inn, we had a seat on the concrete stage that is set up in kerry park just to kill a little time. Now, we are a group of four guys, 24 yrs old, relatively clean cut, well dressed, and clearly not a part of the local transient/drug scene. Still in a span of about 25 minutes we were approached 4 seperate times to either be sold / selling hash, to be sold a half dranken 2-6 of long island iced tea mix for 15 bucks (whata rip off anyways), asked if we were selling any crack, and then some insane woman on a bicycle riding by yelling at random people (us included). Now we all managed to get a good laugh out of the fact that these people looked at us and seemed to think that we would be interested at all in selling or buying their crack, etc. But i couldnt imagine if i had a family, taking them through that greasy park and letting them see the type of people that infest that grubby strip of land that should be the centerpiece of our downtown. Anytime that i walk through there, there is always groups of transients milling about, usually one or two of them are wasted or fried on crack or whatever, barking random sentences out at people as they walk by. Its brutal. And anytime the police are around, you hardly see them really doing much about it. They will talk to one or two of the calmer bums, but the loud obnoxious one always seems to slip away unnoticed by them. Getting to my point now. I really think that Lawsons Landing is the greatest proposal that this city will ever see to improve our downown's vibrancy, economy, and of course overall appearance. But with all of that new parkland and public space that is proposed, i hope that the city sees to it that it is alot more rigorously policed. Because walking through that little gauntlet to get from waterfront park to city park is really unbecoming of a tourist destination like Kelowna.
but I would question your comments on there were "hundreds of people" there. I would say you severely overestimated the amount of people. And to your other point, Lawson Landing would not be depriving anyone that pleasure as they will be building a new stage and a small theatre for people to sit and enjoy the show. In fact, the concerts will become even more popular as people living in the area will be able to just walk down or even enjoy the show from their balconies.