It seems like billiards fans might be snookered
Fancy a game of snooker? If you’re not a member of the Veiner Centre or the Redcliff Legion, you might be out of luck.
This week the News revealed the city was selling off six full-sized 12-foot by six-foot tables that were moved out of the Veiner Centre just before the 2013 flood.
Four new ones, plus an eightball table, will be in place when the centre reopens later this summer
Those appear to make up 80 per cent of the snooker tables in town, not counting mancaves, garages or barns.
The traditional pool halls seem to have disappeared over the last little while lounges are remodelling and, it seems, are getting rid of the big tables.
Likewise the Robertson Legion hasn’t had one for years, the front desk reports.
Boston Billiards, Pete’s Billiards in Crescent Heights, and the Billiard Academy downtown are all no more.
The Cypress Club moved its century-old table out of the upstairs banquet hall to a member’s home several years ago.
The Redcliff Legion kept its big table when it bought a smaller surface, though sources there say only a handful of members shoot on it anymore.
Sign of the times, I suppose. Everybody must be playing pickleball, instead. and 3 makes it a potential logistics hub.
By hook or by crook it might also be the only place to buy marijuana legally within a 100 kilometres or more.
The News has watched a list of proposed locations on the AGLC website fairly closely, but hasn’t yet spotted an address in Redcliff or Cypress County. There are only a few in Brooks and nothing between here and Lethbridge, or north to Wainwright or Saskatoon.
Maple Creek will have an outlet, according to a list of approved applications in that province. Of 1,500 filed, only 51 province-wide were accepted.
Also of note, Calgary Co-op recently listed 17 addresses in that city where the retailer hopes to open cannabis outlets. Also of note, again, regional co-ops are independently run, and there’s no indication similar plans are in the works for South County Co-op, which operates locally and in much of southern Alberta.