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Readers’ Choice
Trekking the globe
The deadline for voting in the Richmond News’ Readers’ Choice Awards closes on Monday, so you have just a few days left to make your mark.
Novice writer Irene Butler has put pen to paper to relive her year-long world tour with her husband, after the pair sold up their business and set off.
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FIRE
Victims told not to touch cash, valuables Fire department cites health and safety concerns BY NELSON BENNETT
nbennett@richmond-news.com
CHUNG CHOW/RICHMOND NEWS
Splish, splash ... A makeshift waterslide at Thompson Community Centre’s summer camp is just the ticket for a soapy Josh, aged 6.
Victims of Saturday’s fatal apartment fire are accusing Richmond Fire-Rescue of preventing them from retrieving their valuables, like cash and jewelry. Elena Vinarskaia is one of 93 tenants left homeless since Saturday’s fire at Heather Lee Apartments on Westminster Highway. The fire department says there are public safety concerns with respect to the building’s structure and has been escorting tenants back into the apartments for brief visits to retrieve things like identification and medication. Three days after the fire, Vinarskaia said she was suited up in a firefighter’s uniform and ushered
into her apartment by a Richmond fire inspector. While the carpets were blackened with smoke, she said everything else in the apartment appeared untouched, and her budgie was still alive. “Nothing is burned,” she said. “The clothes are completely clean.” But when she tried to retrieve some clothes from her closet and $400 in cash that her daughter got for her birthday, she was told she couldn’t take any cash or valuables. With no tenant’s insurance, Vinarskaia needs all the cash she can lay her hands on. “It’s my cash!” she said. “It made me mad. It’s extremely strange.” Vinarskaia was allowed to take her passport, her income tax papers, some photos, her bird and two old laptops, but nothing else. She said see City page 4
FISHERIES
Veteran fisherman claims native rival is out of control Gus Jacobson has been a commercial fisherman for more than 50 years and lives on the water at Finn Slough. When he isn’t fishing (which is more often than not, in recent years) he works on the docks in Steveston. He has recently observed — and reported — what he believes is a native fishery that is out of control. He is concerned about what he feels is a lack of monitoring of the native food fishery, poor hygiene standards on native fishing vessels, and the apparent participation in the local native fishery by American citizens. “Our government has made a monster by making discrimination,” Jacobson said. Local native fishermen agree on the dis$
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Gus Jacobsen says native fishboats are unsanitary, not being properly monitored
crimination part, but say it was First Nations that were kept out of the fishery for years, and are now insisting on exercising traditional rights to fish for food and to make a living. “If you go back 50 years, Indians weren’t even allowed to fish,” said Wayne Sparrow, a commercial fisherman and member of the Musqueam First Nation. It was a Musqueam band member who went to court and won a landmark ruling in 1992 that upheld the right of Coastal First Nations to fish for food, social and ceremonial (FSC) purposes. On July 30 and 31, Jacobson said there appeared to be no monitoring of the FSC fishery by the Musqueam and Tsawwassen First Nation. And on July 31, he said it
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appeared an American citizen had been fishing during that native only fishery. He said he was called out to open a gate late at night, after a native food fishery was over, to let out a fisherman pulling his boat out. He said the boat — which had a fishing net in it — was being towed out by someone driving a truck and trailer with Washington state plates. “I just don’t know why in the hell we’ve got American people on our side,” he said. Barry Rosenberger, area director for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and Ernie Crey, fisheries advisor for the Sto:lo First Nation, offer possible explanations. CHUNG CHOW/RICHMOND NEWS Treaty Indians from the U.S. do have Tangled nets and a pool of fish blood see DFO page 4 and guts aboard a native boat at Steveston.
8171 Westminster Hwy. (at Buswell, one block east of No. 3 Rd.) Walkway access also from Save-On Foods parking lot
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BY NELSON BENNETT
nbennett@richmond-news.com