Time To Snuff The Fireworks?

[Karen]

On the front page of today's Vancouver Sun is a story about how the organizors of Vancouver's annual Celebration Of Light fireworks competition are planning to sell reserved seating in a grandstand
along English Bay. They claim this would be a revenue generator and would help the cash strapped event.

I say if you can't get corporate sponsorship dollars to cover the expenses of the event, get rid of it.

By adding a bunch of paid for seating, you are taking away spaces along the beach where normal tax paying citizens could sit or stand and watch the show for free. Let's not forget, these tax paying
citizens are the ones footing the bill for all the extra policing, parking patrol, street crews and of course the massive post fireworks cleanup.

I doubt many West End residents would shed a tear if the fireworks were no more. They are the ones who have their neighbourhood disrupted with street closures, parking restrictions, vandalism, litter
and the sounds of drunken idiots till the wee hours following these shows.

Maybe in place of the Celebration of Light, the mayor could put together a parade of cyclists riding along the newly created bike lanes throughout the city with each cyclist carrying a sparkler.

[Steve Sanderson]

.........

Maybe in place of the Celebration of Light, the mayor could put together a parade of cyclists riding along the newly created bike lanes throughout the city with each cyclist carrying a sparkler.

Noooo Karen!...Both hands on the handlebars to be safe!
They might have to find an alternative place to jam those sparklers!

[Howaboutthat]

I'm still waiting for the obligatory 3 news releases from this poorly-run organization that they're cancelling the show for the upcoming year due to a lack of sponsorship and/or funding.
I'm getting sick of this nonsense, and the fireworks themselves in the middle of the hot summer when there are campfire bans and warnings about poor air quality.
Shut it down.

[Mike Cleaver]

This is one the one event in "no fun" city that at least draws a crowd other than the zombies who routinely go out and blow a wad watching the Can'tnucks or the Lians.
Look at Vancouver.
No public fireworks display on Canada Day.
Ottawa has a fireworks display, Toronto has a fireworks display but not Van'tcouver.
No public fireworks display on New Year's Eve while we watch every other major city in the world set off a spectacular fireworks display.
The Tall Ships come to Vancouver and it's the only failure world-wide of this extremely popular event.
I could go on and on.
Whomever is in charge of promoting tourism to this backwater berg is obviously an idiot.
There is no other event in this city that attracts the number of people who come out to spend money than the fireworks.
At least you can thank The Shore (obligatory radio reference) for the last two years displays going ahead.
If it wasn't for the station and it's Keg money, referenced in another thread, there would have been no displays for the past two years.
We have money for bums and bike lanes but not for events designed to bring in tourist dollars.

[Cliff Bashly Kinkade]

Some might want to disagree with you Mike:
Vancouver Named Top City in the Americas
http://www2.hellobc.com/travelmedia/sto ... 0&sid=2831

VANCOUVER 2010 OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES WINS “SPORTS EVENT OF THE YEAR”
http://www.tourismvancouver.com/media/n ... z13mXu3RU0

And among the group I hang out with from time to time (travel writers and editors), tourism offices in BC are considered some of the best.

[hagopian]

Fireworks drive us West Enders out of our minds.

Hold em in Surrey = so the RCMP can deal with the juvenile, infantile jerks that Fireworks attract.

Ohh, Ahh. Gimme a break.

[Mike Cleaver]

So what is the difference between the north side of False Creek/English Bay and the south side?
As some of you know, I've lived in Kits Point since moving back to Vancouver in 2001.
We have huge crowds for the fireworks too but we have NEVER had any problems during my stay here.
We go down to Vanier Park every year for the four days.
When the crowds are there, there is no rowdyism, no vandalism, no fights or disturbances and miraculously, no garbage after the event is over.
I guess maybe it's because we have only 2 bars within walking distance of the shoreline and the police presence manning the barricades into Kits Point during the celebration.
It's the same thing with the hockey morons on Robson Street during the playoffs.
Too many bars, too much booze and the "Loser Cruiser" to bring in the riff-raff from the burbs.

[Mike Cleaver]

And BIff, nice to see you back here.
Vancouver, which did well with the Olympics, at least so far as we're still uncovering the real costs of the event to the already overburdened taxpayers, is probably one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
That's why we have tourists coming here.
But there could be so much more done to attract even more and thereby lessen the burden on the taxpayers in the area.
Tourism still is not a "real" portfolio in the BC Government.
TourismCanada or whatever it's called is based in the area now but you never hear much about them.
China could be a huge tourist provider and it's beginning now that Canada has been "approved as a tourist destination" by China.
There are thousands of ways more tourists could be encouraged to come to Vancouver but no one seems interested in hearing about them or developing them.
Just one example:
Train travel is one of the most lucrative tourist attractions world-wide, look at the success of the Rocky Mountaineer but the BC Government refused to continue to finance the Royal Hudson junkets to Squamish, which could have been included in cruise ship packages and sold separately.
Look who has and is spending money these days:
Seniors.
They're packing the cruise ships, the tourist destinations, the destination events.
We need more destination events, such as an International Food Festival, a real Pet Expo, not the commercial thing we have now, held in connection with an International Veterinarian's Convention.
Many events have been proposed but there's never any support.
Organizations give each other awards all the time.
It's just like Gordon Leadbelly and Anne Murphy winning every award at the early Junos.

[hagopian]

Fireworks attract knuckle dragging punks to the West End. Maybe over in Kits Point, they carry their drinks in Martini glasses and snort their meth with 100 dollar bills - but, over on zis side the majority of nice people get crowded out by people with the same IQ as their shoe size.
We agree to disagree, sir Michael.

[Mike Cleaver]

Obviously a totally different crowd on the south side of the water.
We get thousands of people coming into Kits Point for the fireworks, families, teens, the whole gamut but they're well behaved (except for the haze of pot smoke mingling with the smoke from the fireworks.)
All of them walk in and out of the area with no problems and little inconvenience to the residents.