Okanagan Correctional Centre (File photo)
Dear Editor:
I got to thinking, there should never be a single person, male or female, in the southern Okanagan having to sleep out in these brutally cold frozen winter nights from now on, because we now have a fully-funded huge new structure that is tax payer funded.
It is secure and with lots of comfortable warm dry cozy clean beds in it, plus the best of food, and even offers full medical and psychiatric help if you require it. It is fully staffed and bright and clean.
There would be no squabbling for a spot in a frozen back alley or in a cold dark doorway somewhere; you could go to sleep huddled down watching your own TV, or perhaps reading a book from the well-stocked in house library. The lights are all out at 10 p.m., but hey, there has to be some rules.
So where is this “hotel” you might ask?
It’s the big lovely slammer also known as “Ollie” or the Okanagan Correction Centre in Oliver.
You would of course have to knock quietly and slip in by a side door, but no credentials will be needed, no questions asked, no priors discussed, and hey, you won’t have to worry if the place is full because the way the B.C. judges dish out hideously light sentences in their court rooms these days, the regular customers are in and out in no time at all.
Don Smithyman
Oliver, B.C.
