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SHE SAID…
August 24, 2003
Before I forget again, does anyone
know what the explosions are that have reverberated
throughout the valley around downtown, always during
the night? I’ve been meaning to ask the question
of our local readers for a couple of weeks now. The
shots sound like the Marigalante’s fireworks,
but there are no fireworks to be seen. Furthermore,
they happen around 5:30 a.m., not 9 o’clock p.m.
One friend suggested that they may be dynamiting some
hillside, could be, I guess, but at those hours of the
night?
Following the tragic event of a month
ago where people lost their lives due to a Pepsi delivery
truck losing its brakes on Olas Altas (the driver -who
fled the scene- still hasn’t been found), the
city authorities came up with a plan which, honestly,
baffles me: they propose setting up ONE table placed
up against the walls of the buildings there, thus freeing
the sidewalks for pedestrians, while claiming that they
don’t want to “suppress” the businesses
along that street. Now there were still meetings to
be held with the restaurant owners there in order to
arrive at a final decision, but still… ONE table?
I don’t know. And will the chairs be facing the
walls if the table is “pegada al muro”?
I used to live in Montreal, a city whose citizens are
well known for their jaywalking habits. Nevertheless,
tables set out on the sidewalks, in the open air, all
over town, have never been blamed for any accidents.
I’ve lived here for nine years now and I enjoy
walking along Olas Altas in the evening at least a couple
of times a week. Never have I found that the tables
have hampered me, nor have I ever had to walk on the
street, except for crossing it, something I usually
do at intersections …and only after looking both
ways.
Much of the ripple effect of that
unfortunate accident has centered around the fact that
the authorities now want to extend their “La Vía
Publica No Es Barra Libre” (the streets are not
an open bar) campaign to the Zona Romantica that includes
Basilio Badillo and Olas Altas streets. They propose
to apply that article of the law that says liquor cannot
be sold on city/state/federal property, thus the restaurants
would be prohibited from serving liquor to their customers
dining outside. Obviously, the restaurant owners there
are not very happy campers with that proposal.
Bouquets this week go to Ms. Lourdes
de la Torre Gutiérrez, station manager for Azteca
Airlines, who stated recently that Puerto Vallarta and
Bahía de Banderas (that includes the municipalities
on the north coast of the bay) shouldn’t do their
promotion separately considering that this bay and the
communities that surround it are really a single destination,
with a single airport. She went on to say: “When
everyone is working for himself, advertising and promotional
efforts are being duplicated, instead of multiplied.”
Don’t get me wrong. Similar statements have been
made repeatedly over the years, but it appears that
no one is listening.
Also in the “here we go again”
category, officers of the municipal Roads & Transportation
department have started giving out tickets again …for
not wearing seatbelts. In the first two days of the
resuscitated operation, they issued more than 70 fines
in a total of 8 hours. The department says it wants
to “create and promote the culture of the use
of seatbelts among drivers.” It has tried to do
that many times over the years, without too much success.
Maybe the failure has been due to the fact that the
operations are only conducted for a couple of weeks
every couple of years. Also, no one can do anything
about those who transport two or three generations of
a family’s members in the back of a pick-up truck.
The babies, the parents and the grandmothers aren’t
belted in and if the driver should have to apply the
brakes suddenly, I don’t even want to think of
the consequences. Vayan con Díos.
One day last week, I was checking
out the TV Guide online just to see if there was anything
worthwhile on …other than repeats that is. Lo
and behold, I see “A Date with Darkness: The Trial
and Capture of Andrew Luster”, on the Lifetime
channel (that I never watch). I taped it. The actor
chosen to play the convicted rapist was Jason Gedrick,
the same star of Boomtown and another old, successful
series called “Murder One.” He’s very
easy to look at but in this instance he really didn’t
impress us with his rendition of the infamous heir to
the Max Factor fortune. And everything was shot in British
Columbia, not a single frame here in Vallarta. Oh, well.
I think I’ll recycle the tape.
From this page, I want to extend
to my friend Sergio Martinez all my best wishes for
a prompt recovery. I wish his family strength and faith
and patience. Sr. Martinez is a civil engineer, respected
political columnist (for Vallarta Opina), cabinet maker,
builder and author, father and husband. He suffered
a major accident last week when he fell over three floors
while inspecting a work site.
More next week. Take care of each
other. Hasta luego.
pvmomto3@hotmail.com
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