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Clarke Conners, standing, hands Quality a beat-down at the Royal City Wrestling event on Saturday. Thousands of people streamed in and out of Royal City Centre to check out the New West Super Cup wrestling tournament. The Royal City Wrestling event was the first of its kind for the city, and it was a great success, according to Hayley Sinclair, one of the organizers of the event. ‘There’s an obvious interest for this kind entertainment and this kind of competition in our city,’ she said. Highlights included the appearance of Mayor Jonathan Cote, who was there backing up Mr. India in the main event.
International online gaming company first to sign on Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestrecord.ca
An international online gaming company is the first to sign up as an occupant of the Anvil Centre office tower. The tower has been sitting empty since the cultural and conference centre opened on Columbia Street in the fall of 2014. Evolution Gaming is expected to take up one floor of the eight-storey structure to house a 16,000-squarefoot studio that will eventually create 170 jobs. Evolution, along with the B.C. Lottery Corporation (BCLC), announced in April it would be setting up in Greater Vancouver but did not Continued on page 8
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Climbing the stairway to … nowhere? Theresa McManus
tmcmanus@newwestrecord.ca
Should it stay or should it go? That’s a question being pondered about a seeming stairway to nowhere. As part of the city’s decision to demolish a portion of the Front Street parkade, the city built a new staircase in front of a building at 649 Front St.While the stair-
case doesn’t yet connect to the building, it was required to provide a fire escape for the second and third floors of the commercial building. “It’s required by code,” said Jim Lowrie, the city’s director of engineering. “Previously, they had ramps or bridges right across to the parkade.That was their means of egress in the event of a fire.” When the city took down the
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They are planning to do some improvements to that building, and if there is a chance that we can piggyback on those improvements, then the external stairs would no longer be required.” The staircase, which cost $200,000 to construct, doesn’t currently connect to the building. “Not yet,” Lowrie said. “We have to remove the overhead utility lines.That work has yet to be
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western portion of the Front Street parkade, it was obligated to replace the building’s emergency exit. “We consider it temporary; however, temporary is maybe a subjective term.Temporary can be longer than what you might think. It might be a period of years if we don’t have an alternative solution,” Lowrie said. “We are in discussions with the property owner.
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completed.” Whether or not the staircase gets connected to the commercial building remains to be seen. “It depends,” Lowrie said. “We are in discussions with the property owner right now. If we can find an alternative solution earlier, then it may not have to be connected. If it looks like it will take a longer period of time, then Continued on page 5
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