(This
column was published in the North
Shore News on
Aug 13, 2003)
Celebration of Fights face police
By Leo Knight
SO, did you go to any of the fireworks displays?
Take your kids downtown for a little picnic on the beach followed by a stunning show?
Now called Celebration of Light, they could rightly be called Celebration of Fights.
Oh sure, the displays of pyrotechnic dexterity by Chinese, Czech, and Canadian fire artists were spectacular. But the displays put on by the brain-dead knobs were as ridiculous as the fireworks were awesome.
At least 25 to 50 arrests were made on each night. The Vancouver police were faced with the drunken rowdiness of a couple of hundred lager louts enjoying themselves with some childish merrymaking such as bear-spraying grannies in the face, who were doing nothing more than minding their own business walking down Denman Street.
Saturday, the last night of the pugilistic inanity - sorry, I mean the grand finale of the Celebration of Light - brought out the sultans of stupid, the lions of lunacy and the biggest boneheads not sitting on a front porch, strumming banjos in the Ozarks.
Several hundred genetically disenfranchised idiots decided they'd leave the defenceless grannies alone and went downtown tooled up - armed with bags of rocks, baseball bats, knives, and just about anything else which could be turned into a weapon, including, I'm told, a golf club.
Excuse me, just playing through. Whack!
On Saturday night these idiots, fuelled by a terrible mix of booze, drugs and testosterone, went to the West End intent on picking fights with Vancouver police. About 50 were arrested and a cornucopia of weapons seized.
How does this keep happening? Simple. Nothing ever happens to them.
They may get arrested, spend a few hours in the drunk tank and get released. Most are arrested for breach of the peace, a section of the Criminal Code that allows police to arrest troublemakers proactively to try and prevent things from getting out of hand.
But really, nothing ever happens to them of any consequence.
Those who do get charged with more serious criminal offences get a fast waltz through the system and routinely get a term of probation, even if they were already on probation.
It's nuts. It really is.
You'd think since the Stanley Cup riot of 1994 the system would have recognized society's revulsion at these events and found a way to underline that revulsion.
But it's not just at the annual fireworks these idiots show up.
On Friday night as the B.C. Lions made lunch meat of the Calgary Stampeders, a few of these lager louts ran onto the field.
A couple of them doffed their duds, aptly demonstrating why drunken men should not be seen naked. One bright light was running from security. While looking back at his pursuers, he ran straight into the subdued Calgary bench, smarting from getting their butts kicked.
A Calgary player kept the butt-head from adding insult to injury and flattened him, burying him into the less-than-forgiving turf at B.C. Place.
And that is as it should be. It will be the most punishment that lager lout will see for the stupidity for which the rest of us must bear witness.
And some stay home, but still manage to encourage the question, "Out of one million sperm, how was he the fastest."
On Saturday night, seeking to avoid the lager louts downtown, I was dining with friends in the lower Seymour area.
A nearby house was disturbing the placid neighbourhood shooting off fireworks and firecrackers.
My friend and I walked over to seek some respite. We discovered a boy of around 12 years old using his driveway as a rocket launcher. We respectfully asked him to stop and he agreed.
As we walked away, another bottle rocket was fired in our direction.
So we returned to the front of the home intent on speaking with a parent. Well, we were met by a man I can only presume was dad.
He was quite an example for the young man. Drunk, loud and abusive while nattily clad in a white sleeveless undershirt, he rather impolitely told us to "leave Indian land."
He was backed up by a younger man, equally obnoxious and no less vocally abusive.
Discretion being the better part of valour, my friend and I withdrew amid the taunts and catcalls and phoned the North Vancouver RCMP to see if they could succeed in talking some sense to some local lager louts. To no surprise, the police knew exactly which house I was referring to and ventured there, yet again, to try and put the drunken genie back in the bottle. The problem here is quite simple. None of these people - the mental vacuums who went downtown to attack the police, the stadium streakers or the bottle rocket boozers - ever see any consequence for their actions.
The police keep dealing with the same people, being reactive to the problem at hand, essentially putting an adhesive bandage on a gaping wound. There's little they can do short of placing the lager louts in court again and again and again.
At some level, more, no, much more, needs to happen. The civilized part of our society need to get a handle on this type of nonsense well prior to 2010.
The world will be coming and those who aren't here will be watching.
If these lager louts don't begin to see some meaningful consequence for their actions they will still be a problem as the torch is lit in Vancouver.
And who the hell wants that to happen?
-30-