The Muse, vol. 21, no. 02 (25 September 1970)

              the muse
V^   VOLUME 21, No. 2
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25,1970   ST. JOHN'S
10 cents off campus
V
Boat may be barred from Culture Centre
By DAVE McCURDY
hain of events which followed the
arrests and convictions of
three people who settled in an abandoned
mity on the South Coast  could
in the banning of Lukey's Boat
and Culture Centre.
contacted   a   number  of
peopk concerned with the incident, and
the 18-month sentences handed the
and  the  choice  of  language   by
the   Boat    came    under
it one time or another.
irre  hassle   all   started  when
young people out of a group of
ejght who had settled in an abandoned
in Little Bay West, near Harbour
arrested, tried for break,
and theft, and sentenced to   18
Siscoe's
Savages?
The policing of soc-hops and other
happenings   in   the   Thomson   Student
be taken away from campus
nd placed in the hands of a
e   student   security   corps   now
;cruited by the CSU.
: societies were paid $100 per
to police the dances, sitting on the
eisking students who looked like
might   be carrying   weapons  and
ng illicit booze down the TSC Johns.
set-up didn't work out so well
unci! claims changes are necessary.
CSU   President,    Bill
Bishop said, "Thomson Centre employees
found themselves confiscating more beer
:he people policing the soc-hops
than from students attending them."
a security corps (a recruitment
m  page fifteen of today's
paper) will have 30 members and 20 of
a ill work at each event, maintaining
in float.
i! be paid $5 a night and as
■es of the CSU can be fired
' been decided  yet how the
ill be chosen or what
ire necessary but according
will be done within a week
eng the recruitment is CSU
n Dave Siscoe who will
.   corp when it is formed.
ents have already expressed
mining, Siscoe said.
ps (Siscoe wants to call
ulars) is not the first
eablished at Memorial.
i   one Harvey  Taylor
similar contingent to patrol
it his group      who wore white
proclaiming their status —
use  of  difficulty  recruiting
s", they were called at
nut "Siscoe's Savages" for the
months. All this happened last week, with
relatively little press coverage.
However, last Friday night at the Arts
and Culture Centre, Noel Dinn, drummer
of Lukey's Boat, who were playing^ in
concert at the time, interrupted the show
to inform the audience of the incident.
He deplored the heavy sentences — and
was encouraging the audience to
participate in any forthcoming protests
when organist Nels Boland broke in.
In slightly less polite language, Boland
blasted the authorities for perpetrating
such an act, and then proceeded to crap
on the audience for "sitting on their
asses" and doing nothing about it. He was
in the process of lambasting the
spectators when most of them left.
Boland's outburst succeeded in
opening the floodgates for publicity on
the matter, but it may have gotten the
band in a bit of a jam.
John Perlin, director of the Arts and
Culture Centre, was not too impressed
with the language used, and said that
future applications to book the Boat in
the centre "would have to be considered
in light of the circumstances surrounding
Friday night's incident."
However, he denied, an Evening
Telegram report published Sept. 22 that
he had banned the group from the
Centre.
At the same time, G.A. Frecker,
Minister of Provincial Affairs, reputed to
have made a statement on CJON radio
Sept. 22 branding the action of Boat
organist Boland "anarchy", made no
mention of this when questioned by the
MUSE.
He said that he had told a reporter over
the telephone that he thought the
language was "not fit and proper" for a
public place; however, he told the MUSE
that he would have no objection to the
group's playing in the Centre again
provided they promised to "mind their
tongues"
The trouble at Little Bay West was
reported to have started when Liberal
Reform chief John Crosbie complained to
the authorities about the presence of the
young people in the community.
Crosbie later branded these reports
"utter bullshit", saying that he merely
received a complaint by telephone from a
resident of Little Bay West and passed it
on to the Department of Community and
Social Development.
Crosbie did not know whether the
owner of the abandoned house had
actually complained. All he knew was
that the complaint had been made.
He called the 18-month sentences
"very extreme". He said the usual
pro cue dure in such matters would be a
"lecture and a suspended sentence", he
also said that continual use of the term
"hippies" by the local media in describing
the three people is unfortunate, because
so many people are prejudiced by the
term.
The MUSE also contacted Z.W.
Sametz, deputy minister of Community
and Social Development, to whom
Crosbie relayed the complaint.
Sametz, after considerable prodding,
admitted that by the time he found out
about it and told the director of
resettlement, the arrests had already been
made, and thus his department had had
nothing to do with it.
Sametz said his sympathy lies with the
homeowners. "They must have some
assurance that their homes will not be
broken into while they are in another
community waiting to reuse their old
homes on a seasonal basis."
He said, he assumes the law had been
properly carried out, and said that in view
of the crime (break, entry and theft is
liable to a maxium of 14 years), the
sentences were actually quite light.
Meanwhile, the three so-called
"hippies" are appealing the sentence.
Profs to blame for high prices
The inflated prices of books at the
university book-store can not be
attributed to the way the store is run and
is in large measure the fault of faculty
members who do not order books early
enough.
At least that's the verdict of a CSU
Committee which investigated the
operation during the summer.
The bookstore is actually being run
along the same lines as most-co-operative
student book-stores and is not ripping a
fat profit off students by jacking prices at
the beginning of term, CSU president Bill
Bishop said at the Sept. 17 council
meeting.
"The pricing policies are the same as
those in any student co-operative and the
only expenses considered are the
purchase price, transportation costs and
the salaries of employees," Bishop said.
Auxiliary expenses such as heating,
lights and rental are not included when
book prices are being determined.
The principal reason why prices have
to be hiked is the fact that faculty
members always wait until late August
and early September before ordering
books for their courses, necessitating air
express shipment.
Another problem, Bishop explained, is
that the book-store is often left with a
large inventory of books it can't sell
because of text revisions and new
textbook requirements for courses.
"I am satisfied that the store is being
run as well as possible."
One important change in the
book-store operation this year is that
security has been drastically tightened, all
but    eliminating    the      traditional
black-market for books.
The days of book-napping have ended.
This year security is so tight there that it
is virtually impossible to steal anything.
Last year bookstore manager Francis
X. Doyle admitted that security measures
were loose but today the seering eyes of
security foil any attempt to lift a
high-priced textbook.
Tightened security in the university bookstore didn't hinder this kleptomanic co-ed
from hoisting a copy of Kant's "The Moral Law". It has, however, all but done
away with the book black market this year and the squeeze of sky-high bookstore
prices has become even tighter. The photo is actually a burlesque of a scene that
commonly occured in former years ... and is happening occasionally this year.