The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 16

B2 The Ottawa Citizen, Tuesday, October 10, 1995 ClTYLIFE briefly Gay, lesbian group folds after 24 years Continued from page 1 sored for local lesbians called the "Lavender Laundrette." It's the only exclusively lesbian bar in the region. In fact, most of the current association members are women, said Hunter, who has watched membership dwindle from 400 to 150 in the last seven years. But throughout its history the association has swung from one financial crisis to another. Because it considered itself a political lobby, it never applied for government funding and relied solely on contributions and ad revenues from its newspaper. In order to qualify as a charity and receive certain tax breaks, the association's social services split from it in 1984, taking the Gay Line with it.

That group is now the well-known Pink Triangle Services and Deeprose is its current president. Many developments in the 1980s be- gan to displace ALGBO in the homosexual community The decade saw an explosion of gay bars, bookstores and restaurants. "This is a community now where you don't have to live in the straight community if you don't want to," said Kilby "You can bowl, swim and even line dance without ever mingling with the straight community" Deeprose said the association raised awareness over the years and "now there's a whole new generation who have all the options out there. "I think people became less political as our rights became more enshrined in legislation," said Deeprose. Hunter expects the association will keep three people on its board of directors, allowing it to legally exist in name only Dances were another successful venture, drawing large crowds to community centre halls with a $2 cover fee and cheap drinks.

"This was terribly significant," said Deeprose, "because for a time, it was the only open and accessible dance bar for gays." Few women joined the fold in the early days, said Kilby, a local lesbian activist for a decade. While gay men took the risk of being chucked out of city bars for sharing drinks, she said lesbian women met in each others' homes for pot-luck suppers. Today, said Hunter, it's the women who will miss the association most of all and the Saturday night pub it spon- Vandals trash four floors of office building Citizen staff In his two decades in the insurance business, Charles Pilson has seen the consequences of thousands of burglaries and acts of vandalism. Although he must keep a certain professional detachment to do his job, he felt anger Monday morning when vandalism struck close to home. Ottawa-Carleton police called Pilson, the manager of Wellington Insurance, to his office in the Carting Executive Park near Churchill and Carting Avenues.

Overnight, vandals had broken into offices on four floors of one of the buildings. Inside, they'd gone on a rampage, smashing windows, doors, ceiling fixtures and office equipment everything from computers and photocopiers to printers and telephones. Police estimate the damage at $200,000. One officer described it as the worst act of vandalism he'd ever seen. "Just senseless," Pilson said later, as he surveyed the broken equipment.

The vandals took something like a hammer to 21 computers in the insurance office, smashing monitors, key boards and printers. As well, they broke telephones, kicked in glass doors and pulled down sections of ceiling. Security officers found two teenagers hiding in a suspended ceiling in one of the offices at about 5 a.m. Two youths, ages 16 and 17, were charged with multiple counts of break and enter, theft and mischief Monday Man dies after car strikes railway overpass An Ottawa man is dead after his car ran into a west-end railway overpass early Monday morning. Kirk Dorrow, 45, of Byron Avenue, died shortly after his eastbound car veered off of Carting Avenue west of Range Road and rammed into a CN Rail overpass shortly before 4 a.m.

Dorrow, who was not wearing his seat-belt, was pronounced dead at the scene. Orleans man charged after woman stabbed Ottawa-Carleton police have charged a 52-year-old Orleans man with attempted murder in connection with a stabbing at a townhouse on Bilberry Drive in Orleans Saturday night. The female victim is recovering at the Ottawa General Hospital. D'Arcy Sealy is to appear in court Tuesday Child-care activists plan campaign to protest cuts Organizers are hoping hundreds of parents and workers from non-profit child care centres will attend a strategy session tonight to plan a protest campaign against proposed provincial cuts to child care. Suzanne Daly, director of Carleton Heights Child Care Centre, said centres are encouraging a parent-based effort to oppose cuts.

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at Broadview Public School, 590 Broadview Ave. For reservations, phone Daly at 224-8391. Petawawa corporal dies, second injured in accident By Pat Brethour Citizen staff writer A Petawawa man is dead and another injured after they were struck by a pickup truck on a lonely stretch of highway east of Pembroke near the Quebec border early Monday John Predo, a corporal at CFB Petawawa, died within minutes after being struck around 4:30 a.m. Ontario Provincial Police Sgt.

Henry Morgan said the man was walking on Highway 148 toward Pembroke, just inside the Ontario border. His injured companion, Cpl. James Spring, was brought to hospital in Ottawa. Police said his injuries were not considered life-threatening. Predo and Spring had both worked as finance clerks at CFB Petawawa headquarters, where they had been stationed for almost three years.

The two men were walking toward Pembroke in the same lane as the truck that struck them, said Morgan. Highway 148, including the bridge to Quebec, was closed until 1:30 p.m. By mid-morning Monday, a Pem- broke man surrendered at the local OPP detachment. Charged with failing to remain at the scene of an accident is Matthew Allen Simpson, 31. Pembroke OPP provided few details about the accident.

A neighbor said Spring, who was married with three small children, was a quiet, hard-working man. The accident occurred a few kilometres from, and little more than a year after, a Sept. 25, 1994 crash that killed five people, one of the worst crashes in the area's history a Haunted Mi r- I Friday the 13th iiv'r Spooktacle is the Event a t. JC 14 -Vw--V Alzheimer Disease is an irreversible brain disorder characterized by severe loss of memory and intellectual ability. There are approximately 5,000 people in Ottawa-Carleton with Alzheimer Disease.

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