Editor:
I am responding to the article: Closure of Lakeland Hotel has reduced alcohol related violence.
This headline sounds logical but is not statistically accurate. And second, a valid and significant record is necessary for the cause of alcohol related violence. Was it in fact due to the closure of the Lakeland Hotel? Or could it have been due to restricting the number of days the hotel could serve alcohol for the past six or seven years? Or as the constable said himself due to increasing domestic violence charges increased during parole breeches? Thus the statement lacks alternative plausible hypothesis.
Second, crime and criminal behaviour is very general and vague. Here again, the cause of violence is attributed to one thing, alcohol. What about the increased use of street drugs and prescription drugs? Or the economy and the shutdown of the mills, the cut back in forestry, fisheries etc.? In any event, the deviation is certainly not skewed to the right.
And third, Skin Tyee purchasing the Lakeland Hotel has nothing to do with the increased violence due to alcohol. It seems that this research finding is based either on selective observation, errors of interpretation, incorrect generalization and inappropriate use of evidence and may seem believable because of people's belief and respect for authority. In fact, this statement leans toward ethnicity and violence. Perhaps the constable in his research methodology could compare all the hotels serving alcohol and have a cluster of causes for criminal behaviour other than the closure of the Lakeland Hotel.
And last, the closure of the hotel was obviously due to the fact the Skin Tyee nation bought the hotel. In the 50 years of its existence, its First Nation people who are the first to initiate renovations to the hotel and will soon be contributing to beatifying the Village of 亚洲天堂 Lake.
All my relations,
Jean Sam
