READERS SOUND OFF ON THE LAW

WELCOME to the chat room...The readers were writing this week, all
because of two columns that brought reactions with the same underlying
theme.

Anger about breaking rules.

Or, more accurately, breaking laws.

One column was about an off-leash dog that broke through the pond ice
in the Assiniboine Forest and was rescued by another dog owner who
could have drowned himself.

Letter after letter on that one indignantly reminded one and all that
the Assiniboine Forest is NOT an off-leash park.

Read the signs. The other column concerned smoking -- most of it pot
- -- that went on largely unchallenged at the Tragically Hip concert in
the new MTS Centre.

Oh yes, and there was also something going on of a more immediate
danger than second-hand smoke.

Lots of beer-swilling-and-spilling drunkenness.

What follows are some of your thoughts on rock concerts in the age of
no smoking in public places. And, oh yes, the age of proprietors being
held responsible for over-serving.

Dear Mr. Sinclair,

Here I was thinking I was just getting old (I'm only 26) and how it
was, of course, a rock concert and I should expect this to happen.
However, why shouldn't I be able to enjoy the concert as much as the
next person?

I was in section 207. Some younger people smoking pot -- quite
obviously, I might add -- were approximately four rows below to the
left. An MTS Centre staff member was approximately five rows below to
the right. Either the staffer's sense of sight and smell no longer
existed, or it was a sheer sense of ignorance that he chose to
disregard the situation.

In addition, witnessing the two girls holding up the bathroom stall
while they chose to light up was quite an experience while going about
my business.

Considering the fact you can no longer smoke cigarettes, cigars, pipes
etc., in any building in Winnipeg, I'm quite amazed at how easily, and
apparently legal, it is to smoke marijuana in The Phone Booth.

We've built a beautiful building that will hopefully provide more
entertainment options to the city of Winnipeg. Why are we wasting the
facility in allowing it to become one huge "bong" show?

Kelly Davies

I am a 37-year-old non-smoking woman, and my husband is a 44-year-old
non-smoking man and, like every Tragically Hip concert that comes to
Winnipeg, we attended on the 23rd. We actually went there to enjoy
their performance, not be smoked out by the sight and smell of pot.

I witnessed a man smoking pot and the security guard raced up the
stairs, only to have it blown in his face. He talked to the
"pot-smoking man" and confiscated nothing, turned around and walked
away.

Five minutes later, a couple of rows below, another person lit up. We
left our seats, which, by the way, were very good, and walked around
to find new ones. In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed the Tragically Hip.
The smoke I could have left behind.

Jackie Friesen

I, too, was quite bothered by the drunkenness and unruliness at the
Hip concert. I paid good money for a good seat to a good concert, only
to have the evening wrecked by the people around me.

Three women sitting right behind me behaved like they were at the
Palomino Club, smoking, drinking, and yakking so loudly I had trouble
hearing the music. Strange, since we were sitting in section 319, less
than 45 degrees from the speakers.

At least the two guys on my left were quiet. But they drank eight
beers between them.

If I'd wanted to go to the Osborne Street Zoo, I'd have gone there,
where this sort of behaviour is accepted and expected. But I paid
forty-five bucks to hear a concert. Thanks, I feel better now.

Keith Sutton

The reason why the smoking issue wasn't enforced is because we do not
live in a police state. A rock concert is not a tea party and frankly,
yes, you should have expected this. The last thing the arena needs is
an all-out crackdown on a very socially accepted substance in the
middle of a rock concert. Some things should be kept sacred. If it
weren't for the pot smokers it would have been a sparse crowd indeed...

I happened to leave with a great feeling about the new arena and a
sense of relief that the MTS Centre security had some common sense.
Next time, stay home in a comfy chair with some tea and a good book.
That way, everyone's happy.

T. P.

I, too, attended the Hip concert along with my 14-year-old
son.

We were seated in section 305, second row.

Our biggest concern was a woman in front of us who was rapidly
consuming the large drafts. Then, well into the Hip's set, she had the
urge to stand and dance. I was calculating that if she had had one
more draft, she would have toppled over the railing since she was in
the first row of the upper decks.

I asked my son as we were leaving, "So, how did you like the
show?"

He commented that he thought the woman in front of us was going to
fall over the railing.

Leslie Dubois

You actually come across as being obsessed with illegal smoking. Try
to understand it was all a protest. And what better venue than the
spacious MTS Centre? There are a lot of things you don't know. There
are about 75,000 people in Winnipeg looking for a job, which will
allow them to get married, have children and buy a house, not unlike
yourself. These jobs, however, do not exist.

And so there is a certain amount of anger out there.

Anger which your type seems oblivious to.

(Signed) I Am Nobody

Ah, yes, it all comes back to anger.

And breaking the rules.

I just want all you angry pot smokers -- um, isn't that an oxymoron?
- -- to know that I'm really a rebel at heart. I've had a speeding
ticket -- or two -- and if we can speak confidentially here, I have
been known to let Tate off leash in the Assiniboine Forest.

But it won't let it happen again.

The speeding, I mean.

The chat room is now closed.