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4 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, December 6, 1988 Editorial Comments JUST DON'T Well, the festive season is here once again. For most people, the Christmas season is a wonderful, magical time of the year; a time for family and friends, a time for giving, and especially a time for children. Nothing ushers in the Christmas season in Scugog like the Santa Claus Parade, held last week. But all across Canada in recent years, there has been another harbringer of the festive time: the police R.I.D.E. programs. Over the past few years, the dangers and perils of drinking and driving have been well documented and ublicized. In Ontario, the provincial government has al- ocated additional funds to police forces, exclusively for R.I.D.E. programs, and police forces take the attitude that cracking down on drunk drivers does not begin and end with the the Christmas season. However, in spite of the stepped up law enforcement, the huge media blitz, the tough penalties, the large hike in insurance premiums on conviction,, alcohol still plays a major role in many fatal and non fatal road accidents. Last year, booze was a factor in the 40 per cent of the accidents that resulted in death, down slightly from 46 per cent the previous year, but still far too high. - At times it seems that the media are playing a broken record when it comes to warning of the deadly combina- tion of booze and car keys. Obviously, the message is getting through, but not to everyone. So here goes one more time. If you are convicted of a drinking-driving offence, you will face the following: * a minimum fine of $300 and loss of drivers licence for a year. If you're a first time offender, the maximum penalty is $2000 fine, loss of licence for three years and six months in the slammer. * a second drunk driving conviction means an auto- matic minimum 14 days in jail and a minimum two year li- cence suspension. * if you injur someone while impaired, you could go to prison and lose your licence for ten years. * if you kill someone while impaired, the judge could take away your licence for life and send you to jail for up to 14 years. Hiring a lawyer to represent you in court will cost a minimura of $1,000. And if you are convicted, there are the insurance costs: on a first offense, your premiums jump 80 per cent for three years; a second offense in three years will hike the premium another 100 per cent. Then you have all the added cost and inconvenience of being without your vehicle for six months or a year. Add it all up and a single drunk driving conviction for a first time offender can cost you in excess of $6,000 in fines, legal fees, insurance premiums. If you need your drivers licence for your job, you could end up on welfare. Of course, not all impaired drivers are picked up by the police. Some are picked up at the scene of an acci- dent in a body bag, which could be you, or someone you (Turn to page 8) -- a x . 47. A CAS Lh EIR A AR + Tosi a IA , RIL pee: £1; ARIES 3 04 Mad a Yo CVI ENG oy «. IRR "On $AY, GaN You SEE By THE DAUNS EARLY LIGHT 72" Chatterbox by CATHY OLLIFFE Port Perry STAR 235 QUEEN STREET - PORT PERRY, ONTARIO Phone 985-7383 P.0.Box90 LOB 1NO J. PETER HVIDSTEN Publisher Advertising Manager {» CNA cn SS) Member of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Community Newspaper Association. Published every Tuesday by the , Port Perry Star Co. Ltd., Port Ferry, Ontario. ~~ J.B. McCLELLAND > Editor Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for cash CATHY OLLIFFE payment of postage in cash. News & Features Second Class Mail Registration Number 0265 pnAOtAY COMM py 8 1 3 A, Goa ob Subscription Rate: In Canada $20.00 per year. Pilar as ass0litR Elsewhere $60.00 per year. Single Copy 50* © COPYRIGHT -- All layout and com position of advertisements produced by the adver- tising department of the Port Perry Star Company Limited are protected under copyright and may not be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. THE OFFICIAL PERIODICAL OF SNOBS Let me put the Snob Periodical on hold for just one moment, and give a free plug about two of my favourite contests. Time is definitely running out to enter both the Star's Christmas Lights contest and the Gingerbread contest. The deadline for entries in both cases is this Friday at 5 p.m. (to enter, simply call the Star at 985-7383). The Christmas Lights contest is now three years old, and is rapidly becoming a tradition | look forward to almost as much as my mother's Christmas Day carrot pudding. Each year, | hope many people enter their homes in the contest, because selfishly speaking, | love the judging process. This year, me, John B. and two of my friends, Jan- et Keene and Angie Kroonenberg, will all pile in the Star van and tour Scugog Township, looking at lights until our heads spin. It's a terrific night, filled with jokes and laugh- ter, and beautiful displays of Christmas spirit at every turn. And speaking of Christmas spirit, there's nothing like a good old-fashioned ginger- bread house to re-kindle that festive flame. For the second year in a row, the Star is host- ing a Gingerbread Creation contest (not ne- cessarily "gingerbread house", because some people bake whole villages, streets, barns etc.). The best part of a gingerbread house is making it, as my friend Angie and | both know. This year, we've undertaken a mammoth task-- re-creating a segment of Queen Street in gin- gerbread. So far, all we've done is cut out pat- terns and make the gingerbread, so we've got a heck of a lot of work to do before the contest (although we can't enter, we love to show off our work!). Judging for the Gingerbread contest will take place December 14 at 4 p.m. in the Star office (don't forget your gingerbread). The Christmas Lights contest will be judged on the same date, from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. So enter, okay? Make my day! The Periodical of Snobs Once upon a time "Country Estate" maga- zine was a welcome addition to the rural mail- box, when it arrived, jam-packed with articles about the practical side of country living. It was distributed free to so-called "country homes" in selected areas of Ontario's Golden Horseshoe, and my parents, north of Clare- mont, received it six times a year. They always kept the issue hanging around for months, because its recipes, or its tips on preparing the snowblower for winter, or its in- formation about farm pests like groundhogs, came in handy. It provided a good, down-to-earth read, and | rarely missed an issue. But like all good things, Country Estate came to an end. At least, the Country Estate | knew and loved ended--to be replaced by something with the same name that should be called "Country Esate: The Official Periodi- cal of Snobs Everywhere." The "Premier Issue" arrived in my parent's mail while | was off sick, so | had plenty of time to gawk at its 146 thick, glossy, premium- papered, flawlessly coloured pages--full of nothing but tripe. | mean, this magazine is glossier than Vogue. It must cost an absolute fortune to produce. You'd think, with that kind of money invested, the publishers could fill those pretty ages with something other than ads for mii- ion dollar real estate; photo features of rich families cavorting at their Muskoka "cottages", and fashion photos of pampered princesses in pearls. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's look at this magazine from front to back. The very two first pages are indicative of the 54 to come--all real estate ads featuring the most exclusive homes in southern Ontario. The first ad describes "a superb two storey, stone Tudor mansion on Old Forest Hill Road." It has eight "commodious" bedrooms. Seven, count 'em, bathrooms. Maids' quar- ters. Fireplaces everywhere. On a one half acre professionally landscaped lot, this prop- erty was listed at $4,225,000 | choked. Of course, the fashionable business man also wants a cottage to take his family to in summer months, and where better than trendy Lake Joseph in Muskoka? Oh look, a few pages after the $4.25 million Forest Hill mansion, there's a cottage listed for a mere $2.5 million. A cottage, for God's sake. And there are people starving in this world. After the real estate section, there's a page of weddings, featuring (I suppose) the who's who of Bay St. And then there's the news. Yes, Country Estate sure knows how to cover important world events. There's coverage of a polo match, the Queen's Plate, a celebrity tennis game, a cricket club, and Captain Mark Phillips coach- ing rich brats on their equestrian skills. Oh yes, important news. And speaking of (Turn to page eight)