Citizen photo by Dave Milne
Murray Wlckes from Speedy Glass spent most of Thursday replacing broken windows, lights and mirrors on heavy equipment at the Home Depot construction site.
INDEX
SWITCHBOARD: 562-2441
CLASSIFIED: 562-6666
READER SALES: 5&2-3301
TV times
INCLUDED TODAY
Annie’s Mailbox..............33
Bridge.......................47
Business .................34-36
City, B.C................3,5,13
Classified ...............43-47
Comics ......................28
Coming Events..............2,22
Crossword ...................28
Entertainment.............25-28
Horoscope ...................47
Lifestyles 21,22,33,37
Movies.......................26
Nation ....................6,14
Sports ....................8-12
Television...................27
World.....................15,16
58307 " 00200
FRIDAY, MARCH 7,2003
$1.00 (HOME DELIVERED: 54 CENTS A DAY)
by KAREN KWAN Citizen staff
Two men blasted open the door of a gas station with a shotgun while an employee remained locked inside the store early Thursday.
RCMP say two men, with hoods pulled around their faces, approached the Shell gas station store at Fifth Avenue and Tabor Boulevard just before 2 a.m. When they found the door was locked, one of the men fired a shot through the glass and entered the store. They made off with an undisclosed amount of cash and cigarettes. They were seen running between the gas station and the apartment building next door. It’s believed the suspects jumped into a vehicle that had been left in the apartment building parking lot.
The male staff member was not injured. The gas station is open 24 hours a day, but the doors are locked after 11 p.m. and transactions are done through a slot in the window. Pellets from the shotgun blast also struck a food cooler inside the store, shattering the glass. Lat-
Submitted photo Prince George RCMP released this still from a video camera of an armed robber at a gas station.
er on Thursday morning, the shards of glass had been cleared away and the front door and cooler door had been replaced, but seven indentations from the shotgun pellets could be seen behind the sandwiches in the cooler and along the side of the equipment “This is the first time (a robbery has) happened to this extent,” said owner Kathy Bailey. Armed robberies of convenience stores and gas stations are not
uncommon in Prince George, but most of the hold-ups involve knives or the threat of a gun. Robbers have carried bear spray and firearms on occasion, but they’ve rarely been used.
Bailey said the staff member who was working at the time is “doing OK, which is quite amazing.”
The suspects are described as five-foot-seven to five-foot-ten with average builds. One male was wearing a red jacket with three, one-inch stripes — beige, white, and black or dark blue — running horizontally around the upper part of the coat The man was also wearing a black hooded shirt that was pulled around his face, and black or dark-blue snow pants, boots and gloves.
The other suspect wore a blue jacket with a one-inch white stripe running horizontally across the coat and down the arms. He was also wearing a black hooded shirt that obscured his face, as well as a light grey or white nylon-type pants, boots and gloves. Anyone with information is asked to call RCMP at 561-3300 or Crime Stoppers at 564-8477.
Vandals hit work site again
by KAREN KWAN Citizen staff
Ongoing vandalism at the Home Depot construction site in College Heights is delaying work slightly, but the contractor says the building will be completed on schedule.
The site at Highway 16 and Marleau Road has been struck by vandals three times in the past three weeks, with most of the damage done to loaders and excavating machinery owned by sub-contractor Sharp Construction. The latest incident came Wednesday evening. “They’ve smashed windows, mirrors, lights, whatever they can,” said Sharp Construction foreman Mike Martin. He said the vandalism is frustrating and is pushing work back. “Every time this happens it’s another day lost. That’s three days lost altogether,” he said. It’s also costing the company thousands of dollars to repair the equipment, because it’s not worth it to pay the insurance deductible, he said.
Construction of the 95,000-square-foot retail store and 18,000-square-foot garden centre is expected to be complete by late-May, and the store is scheduled to open July 24.
Although the vandalism has caused day-long delays on some parts of the project, the time should be made up during the next couple of months and construction should be finished on schedule, said Ron Schindel, site superintendent with Wright Construction, which is heading the project. The company is looking at getting some security for the site, he said. “We’re looking at security costs,” he said. ‘1 live at the site, so I try to check it but I didn’t see anything last night,” he said Thursday.
RCMP have not identified any suspects. Other than the vandalism, Schindel said the work is going well. There are currently about 30 employees working at the site, and by the time construction is complete, the project will have employed 100 to 120 people, he said.
uozen |
Murray Wlckes from
rors
BERKSHIRE
INVESTMENT GROUP INC.
Plane makes emergency landing
Citizen staff ly, with the help of a wrench, and landed safely.
Firefighters at the Prince George Airport were put on It’s suspected the cold weather — the plane had flown
alert Thursday morning ,when mechanical troubles meant out of Vancouver — contributed to the problem. Official); that a cargo plane would have to make an emergency land- said the plane was later able to fly out of Prince George ing. However, officials said that after about 40 minutes in without any problem. The incident occurred at about 9:30 the air, pilots were able to get the nose gear down manual- a.m. The name of the airline was not released.
there.
High today: -15 Low tonight: -23 Details page 2
PRINCE GEORGE
Citizen
Serving the Central Interior since 1916
Gas station robbed by gun-wielding duo
Tourism numbers up seven per cent
Shel Jacobsen
Investment Funds Advisors
GEORGE, 564-2020 www.bringyourmoneytolife.com
CyfOR A YEAR CONTESTI
popular destination, she said.
“There’s also an increase in RV and rubber-tire (vehicle) traffic and people getting back to different types of travel, like camping and outdoor experiences. So we tend to get that type of visitor passing through or coming here,” Kulchiski said.
It’s a trend that a number of local RV parks and campgrounds benefited from last season.
Occupancy was up 40 per cent in 2002 at South-park RV Park and Campground, said owner Robin Fulton.
Business is growing as more and more people buy motorhomes, he said.
Eighty per cent of the travellers who stay at the RV park on the Cariboo Highway are Americans, mostly older, well-to-do people, he said.
“Also, the growth isn’t a lot of (different) people, but involves persuading people to stay for more than a night. We sell Prince George very heavily,” he said.
RV travellers often require services during their stay and want it quickly and conveniendy, he said, and a large part of his work involves facilitating that.
“Our industry has to realize that rubber-tire tourist traffic is becoming a very important economic fact and it’s increasing every year, so we have to cater to them and make it easy for them,” Fulton said.
Revenue for the Hartway RV Park on South Kelly Road was up 25 per cent last year, said owner Tony Smith. A good number of visitors stayed for weeks or months, while working on the Duke Energy pipeline or Telus projects in the area or visiting family and friends, he said.
“Over half of the campsite was filled with weekly or monthly residents for most of the summer. Drive-through traffic was down a bit,” he said.
The B.C. Senior Games last summer also brought people to the RV park, he said. Smith said the B.C. and European — mosdy German — markets were up, with the biggest increase coming in tourists from northern B.C., while there was a slight drop in American travellers.
This year’s tourist season could be different, he said. “My biggest concern is gas prices and our dollar starting to climb, so American travellers won’t be getting such a good exchange rate,” he said.
The three cougar kittens were reunited with their mother on Thursday.
Mom cougar captured; reunited with kittens
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff
A mother cougar which was being tracked by conservation officers in the Cranbrook Hill-UNBC area with the help of dogs was located Thursday and reunited with her three kittens.
The family of cats will now be relocated at least 100 kilometres from the city ilimits, said Prince George conservation officer Gary Van Spengen.
The conservation officers went on the [hunt for the cat with the help of a tracker and his dogs after several sightings in the dty in the past week, including one lin which the cougar attacked and killed ,a dog at a home on Cranbrook Hill Road last Friday.
The conservation officers started their hunt on Wednesday when they located the three kittens, about sue months old.
Van Spengen said they were worried they wouldn’t be able to find the mother cat, but got lucky when the tracking dogs caught a fresh scent. The cat was treed and tranquilized.
“It’s a nice end to the story,” observed Van Spengen.
Unlike with black bears, the chance
for a successful relocation of the cougars, which feed only on meat, is quite good, said Van Spengen.
Once the cougar family is located far enough away in an area known to have a good deer population, the cat’s main prey, it should stay put, he said.
Black bears, which will feed on anything, including garbage, have been known to return from relocations hundreds of kilometres away.
The conservation office had warned the public this week to keep an eye out for the cougar, calling on children to travel in groups or under the supervision of an adult
While cougar sightings are relatively rare in Prince George, they have been on the rise recently, likely as more cats move into the area with an increase in the deer population.
If you are confronted by a cougar, look as big as you can by waving your arms, banging a stick and shouting. Walk away slowly, but do not turn your back on the cat.
If you spot a cougar, you are asked to call the conservation office at 1-800-663-9453.
by KAREN KWAN Citizen staff
The tourism industry in Prince George grew by seven per cent last year, thanks partly to a strong domestic market and an increasing interest in back-to-basics vacationing, Tourism Prince George said Thursday.
An increase in visitors from B.C. and Alberta helped to boost the number of stops at the visitor information centres to 32,100 last year from 29,900 in 2001.
Tourism Prince George estimates the overall number of visitors to the city rose seven per cent as well to 401,250.
The localtindustry is experiencing the North American trend of travellers staying closer to home, said visitor services manager Deborah Kulchiski.
“The predictions for 2003 suggest a continuation of this pattern due to the nature of world events, fuel costs and the unstable economic picture,” she said.
Prince George also continues to see many tourists heading to Alaska, which remains a
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