Tearing Stuff Down, Show Reminders and Other Calls To Action...

Howdy,

If you've been downtown lately - and I hope you have - you'll notice that the Chronicle Herald building is finally coming down for real. For awhile there, I thought they were literally going to disassemble it one painstaking brick at a time. No, it's looking like they now mean business. As you can easily imagine, this is going to cause us a little grief but at least someone is telling us what's going on.

It will necessarily mean that there will be street closures (to traffic, NOT pedestrians) but, rest assured, we are - and will be - open for buisness throughout. For your convenience, please find the schedule for those closures below...

Demolition Notice: Former Halifax Herald Building

Dexter Construction Company Ltd. has been contracted to demolish the former Halifax Herald building on Argyle and Grafton Streets. Dexter will require some street closures in order to facilitate this work. Dexter expects the project will take until the end of April to complete. Please note that Dexter intends to allow pedestrian traffic to continue during these closures. The barricades will be signed and supervised during full street closures so that delivery vehicles and emergency vehicles will be allowed access. The goal is to complete this project with as little disruption as possible to traffic and the surrounding neighbours. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Dexter Construction directly at 835-3381, or Andy Geldart, HRM, at 476-2243.

The following are streets that will be affected: Grafton Street (between Prince and Sackville), full street closure from Feb. 22 to Feb. 26; Prince Street (between Argyle and Grafton), full street closure from Feb. 24 to Feb. 26: intersection of Prince and Argyle, full street closure from Feb. 27 to March 3, which will result in a closure of Prince from Barrington to Grafton, and Argyle from Carmichael to Sackville; Argyle Street (between Prince and Sackville), full street closure from Feb. 27 to March 5; Grafton, Prince, Argyle and Sackville Streets will all have periodic disruptions throughout the course of this project as work dictates in the form of lane narrowing, parking restrictions and periodic traffic stoppages.

There you have it. We've got a lot of great entertainment coming up in March and I don't want you to think you can't get to us - you most certainly can! And speaking of entertainment, here's what's imminent (cue the trumpet fanfare)...

Gordie Johnson - Wednesday, March 3rd - 9 PM - $20

James Keelaghan - Monday, March 8th - 9 PM - $25

Susan Crowe - Sunday, March 14th - 9 PM - $15

Jeff Martin (from The Tea Party) - Monday, March 14th & Tuesday, March 15th - 9 PM - $30

Po' Girl & J.T. Nero - Sunday, March 21st & Monday, March 22nd - 9 PM - $20

Antoine Dufour & Don Ross - Tuesday, March 23rd - 9 PM - $20

Thor Kristinsson - Wednesday, March 24th - 9 PM - $10 if you get your tickets now!

Matthew Barber - Monday, March 29th - 9 PM - $20

Rachel Faro - Tuesday, March 30th - 9 PM - $15 ($20 includes a CD)

We've got plenty more going on into the spring. Don't be afraid to dial up the Upcoming Performances tab on our website to see for yourself...

That's the nuts and bolts of our immediate talent line-up, so you're up to date on that score. If you'd like to continue reading, please do. What follows is of a more, shall we say, political nature!

Still PIssing About With Parking

I know quite a few of you have been following the efforts of a number of our citizens to get the city (and province) to take another look at how they handle parking issues and ticketing during our winter months. The most pro-active citizen I know - John Wesley Chisholm of Arcadia Entertainment - delivered an on-line-generated petition to City Councel on January 12th. Council agreed to review the winter parking ban within a month's time... and they did...

Sadly, Council charged the Traffic Authority (the branch responsible for the winter parking ban in the first place) with that review. Yes, you're reading this correctly, they had the Traffic Authority review itself - BIG SIGH...

Given that little bit of news, you'll not be surprised to hear that the Traffic Authority thinks it's not only doing a pretty good job, its policy (a blanket parking ban for 25% of the year) cannot be improved upon in any way. Yeah, it's been deemed a perfect system for the winter requirements of this city - the biggest urban centre in the only province in the country where the average temperature in any given month is ABOVE zero.

Council, apparently, has suggested to Mr. Chisholm that the original petition wasn't specific enough in its scope, nor did it have enough signatures to be taken that seriously...

If you're as pissed about this insane regulation as I am, please take a look at the email John Wesley sent out last week and PLEASE take the couple of minutes required to register your righteous indignation via the new petition. It's totally simple and you'll even get a chance to make suggestions on how to better things, if you have any...

    From:     jwc@arcadiatv.com
    Subject:     Parking Ban Compromise - The Petition Site
    Date:     February 12, 2010 8:37:27 PM AST

We've learned a lot from our first petition: lots of discussion with folks in town, information about how the traffic Authority works, and our experience with government Municipal and Provincial.

Here's a compromise that will save everyone in HRM money, time and trouble.

Please have a look at the deal and if you see your way clear, take a second and click your e-pinion.

And please share this site with anyone you know interested in the Winter Parking Ban. It is going to take a lot of clicks to make a difference.

John Wesley

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/parking-ban-compromise

I promise I won't bother you with this issue again, even I'm getting tired of it (but not as tired as I am of getting dicked around!)...