Pubdate: Wed, 29 Aug 2001
Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC)
Copyright: 2001 Vancouver Courier
Contact:  http://www.vancourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474
Section: Opinion
Author: Pat Johnson

POT TOWN BETTER THAN INDY CITY

For years I have lived a couple of miles from the Indy track and suffered 
through the noise.

At four different workplace locations in the past decade, I have always 
been within a block or two of the Indy site and suffered its accompanying 
inconveniences. In one office, we couldn't even work on the Friday before 
the Labour Day weekend because of the wailing engines. In another case, our 
office was made essentially inaccessible to customers for four days.

In short, I was hugely disappointed that CART and the City of Vancouver 
have agreed to continue the Indy here until at least 2004. I wish Indy had 
never come to this city-and I wish it would leave.

But don't misunderstand me. Despite my admission that I have been 
personally and deleteriously affected by the Indy, this isn't one of those 
Not In My Back Yard situations. I'm not a NIMBY.

I'm a snob.

I equate the city centre with positive, enriching cultural celebrations 
like the Jazz Festival, the Fringe Festival, even the Comedy Festival, as 
well as the library (when it's open), numerous galleries, theatres and 
countless gustatory offerings. The Indy doesn't belong here. It belongs in 
Indianapolis, wherever that is.

I know it's only a couple of days a year. I know it's a big draw and a 
source of an estimated $26 million in direct and spin-off revenues. But 
it's the principle of the thing. It's no more an athletic event than video 
games are, and it has the potential for great human destruction, as we saw 
when a pit crew member died tragically a decade ago and as Greg Moore's 
family could attest.

It even has a grotesque element of bear-baiting. Don't tell me that, in 
those throngs of yahoos who parade to the site for the annual race, there 
isn't a significant portion of them who hope-consciously or 
unconsciously-to live a little history, to be witness to a catastrophic 
pile-up that they can recount in gory detail to their knuckle-dragging 
descendants in years to come.

I know we're accused of becoming a no-fun city, but is the Indy really the 
thing to save our rep? Noisy, environmentally destructive, at odds with the 
natural world around us-the Indy is the antithesis of what we cherish about 
Vancouver and this region.

But money talks. Twenty-six million dollars is nothing to sneeze at. The 
bottom line really is the bottom line. Ignore the inherent lack of logic in 
the whole matter.

Everything about the Indy is illogical: the downtown traffic snarls, the 
abrupt revocation of peace in several neighbourhoods, the piercing noise on 
the last long weekend of the summer, the pollution, the litter, the risk to 
human life. But, in this bottom-line world, money makes everything logical, 
though I wonder if that $26 million figure takes into account lost income 
from businesses that lose work time and customers during the long weekend. 
For $26 million, we will hand over our city centre.

So here's another piece of bottom-line logic.

If we are so desperate for cash, why do we continually hound the small 
entrepreneurs who are offering a bit of hash or a toke of weed in the 
casual surroundings of a downtown cafe?

If we will do anything for the almighty tourist dollar, why do we become 
Miss Grundy when the opportunity presents itself to be seen as a 
destination for a little pot?

It's worth noting that marijuana is much more in keeping with this city's 
history and its natural surroundings than speed-car racing.

Tourists lolling year-round with a hash brownie or a hookah would cause a 
lot less disruption to our city than the squealing tires of Labour Day.

And when it comes down to it, I would far rather this city be known as 
Amsterdam on the Pacific than Indianapolis on False Creek.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart