Old Morris Tobacconists

Sometimes I think the human busybody is the lowest form of life in the world. One of Victoria's most prominent busybodies is named John Stanwyck. He is the public health officer for the Capital Regional District and has been in the vanguard of the local anti-smoking brigade since I came here. And don't ask me what the CRD is. I've never figured that out. All I know is that nobody gets to vote directly for the people who sit on it but they have a lot of control over things in our neck of the woods.
I don't really have a dog in this fight. I quit smoking 20 years ago and like a lot of ex smokers I now abhor the smell of cigarette smoke. I quit smoking because it was damaging my health, it was expensive, and I didn't like being enslaved to an addiction. And besides, I hate paying taxes. So I stopped smoking. It wasn't easy to stop but it wasn't that hard, either, and I was a heavy smoker. It was like having a mild case of the flu for a few weeks and for a few years afterward a vague sense of unease persisted that was only slightly more annoying than the poorly healed fracture in my little finger that I got from punching out a marine in an Olangapo bar forty years ago. (Is that how you spell Olangapo?) It's still a little stiff. So as someone who detests the smell of cigarette smoke I rather like it that bars and restaurants now have breathable air. But I was perfectly content with non smoking areas which usually meant I could always find a place to sit. Because I think if somebody chooses to smoke it's their business, not mine.
As the years rolled by, the taxes became more punitive and the smoking regulations got stiffer. A few years ago smoking in bars was banned altogether. Now here's the problem with the busybody mentality: Sometimes their initiatives cause harm. It just so happens that drinking beer and smoking cigarettes go together. It's what you call conviviality, where people get to be friendly and sociable in a public place. That's a good thing. Smoking has a wealth of hospitality rituals, like the offering of a cigarette to a new acquaintance. In many parts of the world a pack of smokes is the most reliable local currency. Some years ago a terrific jazz festival in Montreal had to shut down because the cigarette company that sponsored it was no longer allowed to use its name in the promotions.
We have a very lovely little smoke shop in downtown Victoria that may have to shut down because of the latest set of anti smoking rules which require that tobacco products not be visible to the tender under nineteen youths smoking pot outside the doors. It's one of those shops that you want to patronize just because you like it so much, so I started smoking a pipe a few years ago, and still do once in a while. That's what they sell: pipes, cigars, accessories, all in a store from a bygone era.
But of course it didn't mean anything to the busybodies that those iconic Canadian beer halls went broke, putting their employees out of work, and it won't matter that a 120 year old tobacconist might have to close its doors. Busybodies, you might notice, while deeply concerned for your welfare in the abstractcare nothing at all for individual people. We are merely little pieces on the board of the games they like to play to be moved around or tossed aside according to whatever the latest enthusiasm might be.
I agree that it would be a good thing to reduce smoking. But is it up to an unelected bureaucrat to tell me whether I can smoke or not? That bureaucrat has no compunction about charging exorbitant taxes for the privilege of allowing us to do something he disapproves of. Sounds like a shakedown racket to me, paid for mostly by the poor cigarette butt pickers who can't pay seven bucks for a deck of smokes. And while cigarette smokers (and pipe smokers- the same pouch of pipe tobacco that cost me $10 a few years ago now costs $22) are treated like garbage, junkies get free needles. Go figure.

Trip to Vancouver

Generally speaking I don't believe governments should interfere in the marketplace- but if they do I'll take advantage of the situation. For instance, now that I'm a BC Senior I'm going to take advantage of the fact that I can now ride the ferries for free. (As a foot passenger) So now I can take a day trip to Vancouver for the price of the bus fares plus lunch. I don't know how it works. Does the government reimburse BC Ferries for my fare, or does the company have to eat it?
BC Ferries is a crown corporation, which is an entity peculiar to Canada, a hybrid government/private monopoly that is supposed to operate at arms length to government but which is entrusted with advancing policy goals. We have lots of them in BC. The auto insurance company is one, the hydroelectric utility is another. Canadians have always been leery of private companies because we prefer to avoid the messiness of competition in favour of safe and secure jobs and a reliable return on investment- if you know the right people. It's a fantasy world we live in. Sometimes they make sense, like when massive capital investments were needed to finance building of hydroelectric dams and private capital wasn't available. I don't know much about that kind of stuff but I do know the Insurance Corporation of BC has become arrogant and a law unto itself.
I didn't mean to go into the pros and cons of crown corporations in this post but wanted to ease myself back into this blog by describing what a lot of trouble it is to get on and off the island. That can be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at life. Some of us like the semi isolation of living on an island with that buffer zone of salt chuck between us and the big bad world. The last ferry for the mainland leaves at 9pm and the last scheduled flight leaves about eleven. That makes Victoria a sleepy kind of place, which is OK with me. For the young and ambitious it's not so good. And sometimes even low key me gets a little bit of cabin fever. So now I'm enjoying the opportunity to get to Vancouver so cheaply.
However cheap it is in cash, it's not so cheap in time if you take public transit. I've been catching the 9am ferry. For that I need to catch a bus downtown at 7:30. If you were to drive directly from downtown to the ferry dock at the top end of the Saanich Peninsula it would take about twenty minutes at that time of day. But on the bus it takes an hour. However, I don't mind it. When you've driven taxi for 25 years it's quite pleasant to sit in the upper section of a double decker bus while it winds its way north. From that vantage point the lush fields, the islands in the distance, Mt Baker even farther are pleasant to look at. I understand they are going to start an express route to the ferry which would make it a little quicker.
The ferry ride is also very attractive as it winds between some of those islands you can see from the highway. Active Pass between Galiano and Mayne Islands is so narrow that you could throw rocks at the boat from shore. They seem near enough to touch and yet remote at the same time. On the boat you are a creature of the water. After you get through the pass the Gulf of Georgia opens out and gradually the low shore of the Fraser River delta creeps closer. Big seagoing coal carriers tie up at Roberts Bank next to the ferry terminal to be fed by the long trains coming from the interior.
There is no direct city bus from Tsawassen to downtown Vancouver where the ferry docks at 10:30 so you have to wait at the Ladner exchange for a transfer. It's a dowdy piece of pavement with only a MacDonalds a block away in the way of amenities.
In all it's another hour and a half before you get to downtown Vancouver about noon. That makes in all four and a half hours of traveling time between Victoria and Vancouver.
After so long away from Vancouver I was surprised at how much I enjoyed seeing it again. It was a beautiful clear Monday and after downloading a bunch of music at the library I walked down to the West End where I had lived for a number of years. I first saw English Bay in summer of '68 when I wasn't exactly straight after hitchhiking from Edmonton. I had just been dropped off by the hippie couple who had picked me up in Hope a few hours before. The sun was getting low on the horizon and the panorama of sea and mountain was astonishingly beautiful. People sat around on logs on the beach to take in the show as if it was an outdoor arena. I found an empty log of my own and watched an attractive young woman come onto the beach from the street...like a mermaid coming from the wrong direction. Amongst all the other people on the beach she picked me out of the crowd and made a bee line for my log. Wonderful, I thought, thinking I must be lookin' good. But, no. I just looked like an easy mark. Something about me just stands out in that way. It turned out she had some sort of religious pamphlet she wanted me to read.
It's just as beautiful as ever, is First Beach at English Bay, right at the bottom of Davie Street. This is one end of the seawall walk that goes around Stanley Park. The West End hasn't changed as much as the rest of the downtown area, although the shops have different tenants. No more English Bay Books or English Bay Cookies. But the Sylvia Hotel is still there as graceful and serene as ever. I treated myself to an ale in their very pleasant pub.
The return trip to Victoria is another seven and a half hours of travel, but I like the ferry trip. A bluegrass/Nova Scotia type band had set up in a corner of the forward lounge of the ship and judging by all the cash that filled the guitar case, everybody seemed to enjoy the impromptu concert.
As I headed back home, realized I really miss the vitality of Vancouver. As much as I love Victoria, it has a small town mentality that gets wearisome after a while.