Downtown Barrie scares some people.
These people are mostly old and think that just because there are bars downtown and, sometimes, drunk college students (at around, say, 3:00 am) that the streets are unsafe and the "gash-derned good-for-nothing city council" should get off their collective rears and make our town core more like that Singapore place.
Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I just happen to think that they are wrong. Also, I have proof.
Exhibit A: Tonight as we were leaving the cafe we encountered not one, but 6 officers (aka po-po) on foot downtown keeping the peace. We spotted one pair of jaunty fellows entering the bar in the centre of town. Now if that's not an indication of a safe town with its law enforcement's ear-to-the-ground and elbows-on-the-bar, I don't know what is.
Exhibit B: Yet another uniformed "officer" (aka faux-po) closely guarding Barrie's newest and most prized ridiculously-overpriced-and-useless possession: The World's Largest Snow Globe.
Exhibit C: I'm not shitting you about "Exhibit B." That's right. Barrie has been chosen as the launch site for Ontario's newest tourism brain-child: The World's Largest Snow Globe, complete with LIVE "performers" inside of it. That's right - PEOPLE IN A BUBBLE IN THE MIDDLE OF TOWN! Every day from 10am-6pm a variety of actors mime wonderful winter activities for your viewing pleasure. You should come check it out - it's CREEPY.
Still, how can the downtown be "bad" if there's a giant snow globe in the centre of it? A giant snow globe with a privite guard, no less! I mean, the argument is over as far as I'm concerned. If the oldies still insist on staying away that's fine, but they'd better stop complaining. When your city provides you the opportunity for refuge from drunk idiots in a cozy snowglobe, well, then you shouldn't be uppity about ridiculously high property taxes or just-plain-stupid parking hikes. It's a SNOW GLOBE people!
Lakeshore Drive might be a construction nightmare, and the local winter-based industries might be in really big financial trouble, but we've got a giant plastic ball with people in it sitting in our "Memorial Square" beside a tank. And if that doesn't say "revitalization," then I don't want to be revitalized.
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At least Barrie built a snow glode. Windsor's ideas for boosting tourism tend to shoot beyond the tragic and into the would-be epic. I mean a film industry? Unless they're talking about the film of gross on every outside structure... then yes... they have a chance.
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