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a. 4 . Wat-doc Wmlph. wmma. "N _ Published every Wednesday by Fairway Press, a division of Kitchener-Waterloo Record Ltd. 225 Fairway Rd., Kit- chener. Ontario. Address correspondence to' Waterloo Square, Waterloo. Ont. Telephone 744-6364. It is our fervent hope that the Consumers' Association of Canada realizes one of its goals in having the visible price tags and markers re- main on articles on Canadian supermarket shelves. The association plans to force legislation at the federal level making it illegal for any food store to sell packaged goods which use the com- puter readout system without having a visible price on it. We hope they win. The system, known as the front. end control system, is a combination of special marking on products, such as canned goods and packaged goods, and a computerized checkout system. . A large number of Canadian and American food chains and manufacturers hope to intro, duce this system into all of their retail outlets and on all of their products. V The system doés have some good points, but not for the c0nsumer. Supermarkets would use the system to insure a more accurate inventory control of their shelf stock. While this in itself seems logical enough, the pinch comes when the shopper en- ters the store. Advocates of the system say the prices would be removed from the goods and placed on the shelves. There is no doubt this approach would serve to confuse the shopper and create more aggravation. Something modern day shoppers can do without. . If the system was implemented and products were sold" with just their computer code on them and no visible price then shoppers would have two choices. They could make a list of each purchase as they went along or shop at a non-computerized store. A shopper, especially a homemaker with children, does not have time to itemize every purchase and can not check each item at the cash register until she receives her bill. Supporters of the system say that each item will be on the bill. What they fail to say is that the unit price, that is the price of a product for each ounce or pound, will not be on the shelves. The supermarkets feel the system would serve the customer better by offering quicker service. Possibly it will but if the visible price is removed then shoppers will have a legitimate reason for complaining. Possibly the answer lies in leaving both the computer code and the visible price on the package. Most, not all but most, supermarkets want to do away with the visible price. We hope this never happens and that the Con- sumers' Association of Canada manages to gain enough support from shoppers and poli- ticians to ensure that shoppers will know what they are paying when they travel up and down the aisles of their supermarkets. . Leave the prices on SUBSCRIPTION RATES In Canada: one year ttr, in United States and Foreign countries: one year $10 waterloo chronicle WeWpMnt ESTABLISHED 1054 Editor: Mike Roy , limvntmvn perspective I’ll never forget that date, March 15, 1973. I, a shy hirusewife, stood up before 100 people and nervously talked about trees. That was when a few of us, convinced that downtown Waterloo residents needed to unite in the face of the threat that we felt the proposed widening of Albert Street was to our cherished life-style, called a public meeting. Others agreed, and from that meeting at McGregor School the Downtown Residents' Association was formed. What have we done in those two years? We find out man began that April by presenting to Council a pe- concerns. tition with 2600 signatures to show we cherished - In May, H the historic atmosphere of the old residential dary plan stu core. of the city. With the petition we presented helped the 13 our case, and Council decided in May to aban- their unsucce don the widening of Albert Street. Jeest the d Our first annual meeting came in May too, vitt property. when we ratified our constitution, and had the Last sprin; then city planner, Don Scott, talk about down- ponded to tt town residential zoning. The following month planners forl we helped residents in the Moore-.Erb area in By the Far, their protest over a high rise apartment. As well, postcarfls ff we did some research and wrote about tree policies in various cities, hoping to spark interest in a more positive tree program for downtown Waterloo. By September, 1973, our activities were rec- ognized by the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, who gave us a small grant to help us continue to promote participation in municipal government. Later in the Fall we helped the residents of Young Street in their successful bid to change their residential zoning to single family from the more permissive status they held. Our exe- cutive also wrote to Mayor Meston supporting the Urban Renewal Plan. We asked for a secondary plan for our area "taking measures to protect stable residential or historical areas". Dear Sir After reading the Chron- icle of Mar. 26, I can't help but wonder why the Mayor, tWaterloo Mayor Herb Eppl, feels it is ne- cessary to make a public plea for higher density development, land parti- cularly high-rise develop- ment), in the core area Letters tn the editor It was in October, that we objected to an arena the University of Waterloo wanted to build in before the preliminary report on the Secondary Plan is even presented to council. The Mayor obviously feels strongly enough about high-rise develop- ment in the core to exhort council in the press but his reasons for making this plea are not persua- I, the park. And throughout the Fall we encouraged Id people to attend the public hearings concerning an the Regional Official Plan. ‘__ " ' In the Chronicle of January, 1974, one of our executive reported on the National Housing Act program, explaining the RRAP (Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program) under which money is available to upgrade older hous- Ing. T Last March we launched a questionnaire to find out more about our members and their concerns. 'In May, Howard Smith described his secon- dary plan study at our annual meeting. We also helped the residents of the Moore-Erb area in their unsuccessful attempt at an OMB hearing to protest the density of the high-rise on the De- LSstEr'i’rig and summer the executive res- ponded to the various papers sent out by the planners (orlhe Regional Official Plan. After Christmas we threw our energies into making the secondary plan neighbourhood meetings successful by delivering flyers and encouraging participation. . By the Fall we were urging you to return your post-cards for the secondary plan survey. Then before the election we decided to sponsor a very successful Meet the Candidates night. This hadn't been done in Waterloo for several years. Now in the Spring of 1975 we are back to Al- bert Street again, and back to trees. We ask- ed Council to join us in a professional study of the trees involved in the street widening. In another month it will be time for our third annual meeting. Time for a new executive and some new ideas. We have used this space in the Chronicle to awaken more interest in local plan- ning and politics. The greatest reward of course comes from being actively involved. Don't just read about downtown Waterloo, DO. something about it. You can always contact us through this newspaper. sive. I question the logic behind his remark that "Unless a more practical attitude prevails which accepts the principle that a viable downtown re- quires better shopping facilities and high density accommodation to support these added facilities. our core area will deteriorate Submitted try Rosemary Rowe Downtown Residents’ Association and with it, other parts of the city." It is obvious that he has reversed the order of im- portance here. Shopping facilities exist to serve a resident population: you do not move people into an area via high-rise, lor low-rise), development in (Continued on page 5)