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Bantam girls take silver
Ahoy there mateys
The 94B Islanders team took the silver medal in the Western Canadian Bantam Girls softball championships hosted in Richmond.
The Britannia Heritage Shipyard is gearing up for the Maritime Festival where the Walk the Plank Gang will be present to relieve people of their bootie.
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Man killed in fire identifided Homeless victims given 45 minutes to salvage belongings BY NELSON BENNETT
acampbell@richmond-news.com
A 79-year-old man who died in a fire at Heather Lee Apartments on Aug. 7 has been identified. The B.C. Coroner’s office Tuesday identified the victim as Allan Orr. The cause of death is still under investigation, and so is the cause of the fire. Meanwhile, tenants left homeless in last week’s fatal apartment fire were given 45 minutes to salvage whatever they could on the weekend. But at least one tenant was told her apartment is unsafe and she fears she may never be allowed to recover her belongings. Elena Varniskaia and her 14-year-old daughter were among the tenants displaced when a fire tore through Heather Lee Apartments at 8540 Westminster Highway on Aug. 7. Vinarskaia’s first-floor apartment was in the area of the building that sustained the worst damage and has been deemed unsafe. She said the landlord has told her she may never be able to get in to her suite to retrieve her valuables. While that may be true, that doesn’t mean the landlord plans to keep all her belongings.
“If it’s salvageable, they can have that,” said a spokesman for Cressey, the company that owns apartments. Speaking on the condition his name not be used, the Cressey spokesman said there may be some miscommunication going on with tenants. “When there’s a way of getting in there — and that will require demolition crews, and people that are qualified at doing that — we’ll get in,” he said. A few days after the fire, Vinarskaia was given five minutes, escorted by a fire inspector, to retrieve her passport, income tax papers, budgie bird and a couple of laptops, but was told she could not take anything else, including the $400 her daughter had received for her birthday. She said the suite was not burned, although carpets were smoke-damaged. On Saturday, Richmond Fire Rescue handed the building back to Cressey, which allowed tenants from the least damaged portion of the building in to retrieve some of their belongings. Leon Rzhemovska, whose sister lived in the building, said the understanding was that Saturday may have been the only chance tenants had to recover their belongings. see Victims page 4
CRIME
Bat attack sends man to hospital
Victim doesn’t know or won’t say who attackers were
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or five Asian males,” said Sgt. Katherine Hansen of the Richmond RCMP. Mounties arrived to find a 24-year-old Asian man bloody and badly beaten. Hansen said the young man had apparently been beaten with baseball bats and a metal bar. By the time police had arrived, the assailants had fled. One eyewitness told the
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News that there appeared to be more than five involved in the attack. She said she and other tenants heard yelling and screaming and called police. She said it looked like four people ran off and that several ran inside the building at 6199 Cooney Road. She added that there was a significant amount of blood on the pavement where the see RCMP page 4 07283111
CHUNG CHOW/RICHMOND NEWS
Air-Born, a circus troupe, perform a dual trapeze act (without a net) for seniors at Bowling Green in Minoru Park last week. The performance was sponsored by Health Arts Society, which brings in entertainment for seniors who can’t get out to see shows.
Richmond RCMP are investigating a violent gang attack on Cooney Road early Monday morning that sent a young man to hospital with broken bones and a head injury. RCMP received a 911 call from an apartment building in the 6100 block of Cooney Road just after midnight. “We responded to a single male being attacked by four