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_â€" Inevitable solution With that much expertise in one committee room, one would expect solutions to the parking squeeze. But unfortunately, methods of providing Waterloo‘s downtown with more parking are not that easy to come by. As Mayor Carroll said during the session, ‘"We are only beinning to look at parking in terms of longâ€" range planning." The meeting joined the forces of Oxford Developments Ltd., major holders of downtown property, Mayor Marâ€"â€" jorie Carroll, city engineer Jim Willis,A deputy treasurer floor and you are there . By Dave Johnston Waterloo‘s downtown parking problems are far from solved following a special parking meeting this week. â€" Ross McKee and representatives from the Downâ€" town Improvement Association and Chamber of Comâ€" merce. Waterioo Chronucle office is located on 2nd floor of Waterioo Square‘s OlhuTowu Enter via the mail entrance beside the Longhorn Restaurant (drectly opposits the card shop) or from the elevator foyer beside the Tâ€"D Bank Take the elevator to the 2nd And of the session at city hall Thursday, Downtown Improvement Association director Richard Biggs said, "If this meeting accomplished nothing more than isolatâ€" ing the problem, it‘s a start. But one senses from the minimal accomplishment at the session that convenient and plentiful parking in downâ€" town Waterloo is a long way off. o o_ Page 4 â€" Waterioo Chronicle, Wednesday, July 13, 1977 Merchants may not be able to wait. There was a defâ€" inite concern voiced by business representatives that a shopping centre slated for construction at King Street North would stifle the downtown core with its bait of ample free parking. The initial solutions to ease the situation from Thursâ€" day‘s meeting will have little effect on the problem. The committee decided to make an attempt to direct motorists to fringe parking lots during the hours when the lots are not being used by permit parkers. If properly used, the surplus lots could alleviate some congestion, but only after office hours and on Saturdays. And with the addition to Waterloo Square‘s shopping centre likely to make parking more crowded downtown, the merchants‘ worries could spell their fate. _ o And other solutions like marking spaces single spaces on King Street or tacking a few more spaces onto existing lots will not noticeably ease the congestion at Waterâ€" loo Square. The committee‘s positive action was labelling the core of the parking problem. Jack Middlemass, secretaryâ€" treasurer of the Chamber of Commerce said a recent survey proved twoâ€"thirds of the Square‘s available parking spaces are occupied by merchants and their emâ€" ployees. The committee even took a stab at correcting that problem. Jim Willis announced the city had 40 parking spaces for rent at the arena lot as a result of recent excavation. The group decided to advertise the spaces for rent to square tenants. The committee also planned to look into leasing land east of Herbert and Regina Streets from Canadian Nationâ€" al Railway to be used as temporary merchant parking. The land. though irregularly shaped and ungraded has already solved some downtownâ€"area workers‘ parking problems. And problems there are for tenants of the Waterloo Square office tower. As a worker in that structure and in constant need of a vehicle for short trips, I feel personâ€" ally involved in the parking situation. waterioo chronicle I admit to juggling my car. erasing chalk marks and all those other nasty employee parking tritks. Lately,. I‘ve begun combing the perimeter of the lot when returnâ€" ing from a frequent jaunt in hopes of securing a 10â€"hour metred space with plenty of costly hours left in the metre. What else can I do? I can rent a municipallyâ€"controlled space and be out the cash (if I‘m unable to get my emâ€" ployer to foot the bill) â€" â€" Or. 1 can play musical spaces with the metreâ€"maid. In view of the great number of square parking spots full every morning at 9. it is obvious more people gamble than play it safe They will probably continue to do so until the city or merchants and land owners agree that the days of free parking are over o _A don‘t like to admit it but Jim Willis is right. As long as there is an alternative to paying for parking. people will use it. myself included If revenue was collected for parking downtown. the money would help ease the burden of financing the inâ€" evitable parking garage that seems to be the only solution to parking problems in downtown Waterloo published every Wednesday by Fairway Press, a division of Kitchenerâ€"Waterioo Record Ltd., owner . 15 Fairway Rd. S., Kitchener . Ont. address correspondence to Waterioo office: Waterloo Square, Waterloo, Ont .. telephone 886â€"2830 subscriptions : $10 a year in Canada. $12 a year in United States and Foreign Countries Publisher: James M. Boland Editor: Mary Stupart Advertising Manager: Wolfgang Urschel established 1854 You were probably surprised and a bit shaken by that recent CBC television show ‘"‘Connections," all about the permeation of Canadian society by organized crime: the Mafia, the French Connection, the Hong Kong Connection, and so on. ' It neither surprised nor disturbed me. I‘ve known all about it for about four decades. In fact, I‘m amazed that the CBC didn‘t interview me, if they wanted something authentic about the beginnings of organized crime in this country. 1 was there. Of course, at the time, I didn‘t realize what I was getting in to. I was in my early teens. But the pattern, looking back, was obvious. â€" There were two Families in my home town, the Salvatis and the Guaracchis. Showing little originality, both operâ€" ated behind the front of a fruit store. Phey were both from Sicily, and they were bitter enemies. If Sammy Salvati ran a special on fresh asparagus, you can bet your armorâ€" plated vest that Joe Guaracchi, after sending one of his boys down to check the prices in the store window, would undercut him by a dime. The Salvatis. for example, tried to assimilate. They joined the United Church, to set up another front, and it‘s been rumored that they "laundered" a lot of their ill}â€" gotten gains by syphoning them through that organizaâ€" tion as donations. | Back and forth went the skirmishes, but we ordinary smallâ€"town punks caught only once in a while the savage internecine warfare that went on behind the fruit store fronts. On the other hand. the Guaracchis went on speaking Sicilian, threatening to murder their kids if they didn‘t work harder. and muttering about their ‘"conhection‘‘ with Rome. At the time. I belonged to a gang of young hoodlums who hung about in the town‘s two pool rooms, those of Bob Loblaw and Sylvester QO‘Toole. One of our gang, the Chinese connection, was Joe Hoo, scion of the only Chinâ€" ese family in town. As you can see, it was quite a cosmoâ€" politan municipality. although the population was only We were a pretty vicious crowd, but it was Depression years. so that we didn‘t have the opportunities otf today‘s punks. There was no point in snatching purses from old ladies: there was nothing in them. No point in mugging elderly gentlemen for the same reason: broke. We didn‘t drink. because our fathers couldn‘t afford to have it around the house to steal. Helling around on motorcycles. of course,. was out of the question _ But we did terrorize a few neighborhoods by FRANK... I PDON‘T \ THINK TAKING THE LIFETACKETS ouT To MAKE ROOM FOR THE BEER WAS A GoopP IDEA... riding our secondâ€"hand bicycles on the sidewalks and occasionally right across someone‘s lawn. _ _ At least once a week, we‘d lean out the thirdâ€"floor winâ€" dows of the local Chess, Chowder and Cribbage Club, which we were allowed to use, as junior members, from nine to 11 on Sunday nights, in exchange for janitorial duties, and spit on passersby below. There weren‘t many â€" passersâ€" by. that is â€" on a Sunday evening in a small town, but occasionally we‘d hit one, shout ‘"Tallyâ€"ho!‘~ ant toast each other in Pepsi. I don‘t w;mt‘you to think for one minute that we weren‘t taking out our subliminal frustrations and latent aggresâ€" sions against society. We were. o But it was through our other thuggish (yes, I admit it now) activity that we became deeply involved with The Mob. This activity was stealing from the outside stands of â€" you‘ve guessed it â€" the town‘s two fruit stores. From the outset, it was obvious that we‘d come under the wing of one of the two Families. It didn‘t take long to see where we were heading. The Salvatis kept a good lookout, shouted loud, in English, and would chase you all the way to the river to get back a lousy peach. But the Guaracchis, although they too shouted, in Sicilian, were fat and couldn‘t run. And we had an ace in the hole. One of our gang was one of their boys, Phil Guaracchi. We terrorized him into utter submission by threatening to expose his membership in the club to the Godfather, Joe Guaracchi, who would have thumped him into a very small pizza, indeed. The minute the new fruit was put on the outside stands, one of our gang would go into the store and ask Mama Guaracchi if Phil could come down to the pool room. While she was haranguing him, the rest of us would stuff our shirts and head for the park for a gluttonous gorge . So we had an inside man. He‘d tip us off when his old man was off with the truck to Buffalo, where he had a close connection with the Bananas gang. We knew exactly when he‘d arrive back with a truckful of bananas, grapes, you name it, and laid our plans as carefully as the IRA. It was only a step from there to getting into the Godâ€" father‘s cellar and homeâ€"made wine when he was out of town. Next thing you know, a couple of us were running dances, at 50 cents a couple, with beer in the back room in a tub of ice. We used to promise the orchestra $25 and then beat them down to $15. The money just rolled in. Some weeks we made enough to pay a little off on our bill at the pool room, where we habitually played on our "nerve." That is, without funds to pay for the taâ€" ble. if you lost. Some of us got killed. Some of us had a worse fate. We stayed alive and got married. The old gang broke up. But don‘t tell me about the Mafia. I was there. There was only one direction we could go, and we‘d have wound up more debased and debauched than the Dubois brothers of Montreal, if the war hadn‘t come along