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AROUND AND ABOUT OUR FAIR CITY |
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Written by Alex J. Walling
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Monday, 21 August 2006 |
Roads, Radio And Customer Service
 Why can’t Halifax construction workers work at nights and on weekends like they do in Toronto and some other big cities?
Let’s face it, summer time is construction time for our roads and streets but we are not a big enough of a city to have a million ways to get into town. Have you been stranded on the Bedford highway this summer or on Wyse road (around Moosehead Brewery and Akerley last summer? What a mess.
Why not fix the roads and not inconvenience the public and that can be done by working from 6pm – 6am. The asphalt doesn’t care at what time it is poured?
I noticed when some of those Bedford subdivisions were built a few years ago the developers had the crews not only working at night but on weekends. If the private contractors can do it why not the city?
Here a radio station, there a radio station and it seems everywhere you turn there is a new or shifted station on your dial, and that is the F.M side of your dial.
Have you noticed all the new signals that are popping up and we may have more. Two years ago this coming December the CRTC (Canadian Red Tape Commission) issued four licenses for the area. They went to Rogers, a Jesus Loves you station (CJLU), Z-103 (The Beat) and something that was to be called ‘The Breeze”, owned by Global.
Rogers who had the toughest assignment as they had to get three radio stations (Halifax, Moncton and Saint John) running got them going last October. The CJLU (Christian music and always asking for money station) went on air last summer and seem to still be around. The ‘Beat”, radio Z-103 is up and running or at least playing music and the ‘Breeze” is null and void so far. They were licensed to Global for a version of today’s easy listening.
Under current regulations a station has two years to get ‘up and running’ and these Global guys should have been the first one on the block to broadcast as they already have a place for a studio with Global TV in Burnside and setting up a radio station isn’t that hard.
But nope they are not up and rumour has it they may surrender the license. That would be interesting as they spent a lot of money on an engineering survey and sold the commission that Halifax could support their easy listening format and yet they may not even sign on. I will do a longer bit in a few weeks on this topic.
Hal-Fm is interesting. We’re talking Maritime Broadcasting here and they were denied at that CRTC hearing of spring of 2005 of an FM license for a format somewhat similar to a blend of Kool-Fm and C100.
They were surprisingly shut out so they got their FM frequency anyway by applying and getting the shift from the CHNS A.M. frequency to the FM band. And instead of going after C100 they are after Q-104.
I find it interesting they took the colours (Black and yellow) of their Country 101 FM station for their new Hal-Fm. It now adds up why, after 30 something years, Country 101 dropped its slogan and surrendered their black/yellow colours and changed to white, red and black.
I’ll say one thing for Hal-FM they have one heck of a boom box and I saw it on location for the selling of the Stones concert. It looks great. It’s parked right in front of the Halifax Daily News.
By the way there may be some juvenile things going on. I couldn’t help noticed that the Hal-FM billboard on Joseph Howe drive going to the logjam on Windsor street and the bridge was torn and destroyed. I wonder if Q104 fans are behind this?
And in our ‘customer appreciation’ for food critic section a compliment to Sara(h) and Betsie.
Sara handles the check out at the Superstore on Joseph Howe drive. What a polite, nice, and efficient employee. I wish there were more like her.
As for Betsie, I took my daughter to the ‘Thirsty Duck’ last week. I hadn’t been there in nearly 15 years.
First impressions weren’t great as we came up the stairs and waited, and waited and waited for around 3-4 minutes before we saw a soul and someone asked us if we had been looked after. Believe me, if we had, we wouldn’t be waiting around. The time was around 1:15 pm and there were very few patrons or staff around.
Finally, we were taken and given the choice of many places to eat and Betsie served us.
My daughter had the Monte Cristo sandwich and loved it. She likes chicken and says it was tender, fresh and hot.
I was offered the special of the day, a spicy chicken wrap with peppers and a sweet sauce. I was hungry and said why not and also took the home made soup.
The soup served in a big bowl was good but not as hot as I would like. I would rather it to be hot and I can let it cool down but it wasn’t cold enough for me to send it back. And I was hungry.
But the special was great, moist, hot, tender and filling. I enjoyed it and would recommend it. It’s the first time I had a ‘wrap’ and won’t be the last.
Not a great choice for dessert so I passed.
Betsie was very engaging and answered questions about the food and the Duck. She didn’t have a name tag and told me they don’t have them. Why not?
But she was very good and made up for the ‘not so hot’ soup of the day. The bill for both meals including two draft beers (she had Heineken and I tried Keith’s Red) came out to $36.
For dessert I went next door to the new just opened a few days ago “Starbucks’ and had one of those cold creamy drinks. Mine was a vanilla bean concoction that tasted like a vanilla milkshake and set me back $4.65. It was good and enjoyable and it was interesting watching the staff trying to make things happen as they are a new operation and the kids are learning on the fly.
They had a constant stream of clients and it will be interesting in going back in a few months and watch the team as the ‘bugs’ are out of the system.
Alex J. Walling can be reached via email at:
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