inside otters registration sports classified 6 21 25 26 3 at least 25 area charities out in the cold as markham bingo hall closes again wftjtcfturcftsieuflvitfe ptimic uvt community calendar event opening of casey van maris soccer centre when saturday sept 21 15 pm 9058889242 where ballantrae community centre aurora rd j h diversions who makes the best chili in york region and whafs their recipe serving whitchurchstouffville since 1888 50 cents including gstv 44 pages saturday sept 14 2002 to reach us 905 6402612 sailor starts race around the world tomorrow york region diabetic motivating others by mike adler staff writer around the world alone until the first week of may the sailing odyssey of john dennis a markham skipper who is diabetic begins tomorrow this week he first saluted a friends missing son ralph gerhardt a canadian working in the world trade center was killed last sept 11 mr dennis a commercial property manager worked with mr gerhardts father hans he decided a warmup leg of the race from newport ri would serve as his tribute the race around alone starts in new york and has stops in england south africa new zealand and brazil before finish ing in rhode island next april the worldspanning race is one mr dennis thought hed never be able to do after he started showing the symptoms of type 2 diabetes in 1996 he is sponsored by the drug company bayer and will count on its product ascensia and his own selfmanagement to sus tain him over 28755 miles said to be the longest race for any individual in any sport mr dennis said he is attempting it to motivate peo ple with diabetes to look after it themselves its the first major sailing see sailor page 7 more than 400 charges laid against york region restaurants pubs businesses by jeff mitchell staff writer the longanticipated constitu tional challenge to york regions smoking bylaw enters the courts this week on wednesday lawyers repre senting newmarket restaurateur irv riopelle and the region will begin a case that is predicted to take months to settle costing thousands of dollars a report to the regions health committee predicts the case for which the municipality has hired an outside lawyer could cost tax payers up to 30000 mr riopelle said that figure is too low its going to cost them a lot more than that he said last week this will wind up in front of the supreme court of canada mr riopelle owner of the crows nest in newmarket is the point man in a widelybased challenge to smoking laws that restaurant and pub owners say hurt business among the arguments theyll put forth is that lowertier munici palities such as york region have no right to pass laws governing the use of tobacco which is a federally-con- court trolled substance mr riopelle has been charged so many times for flouting the regions bylaw he no longer knows how many infractions he faces he said he adhered to the provi sions of the law which restricted smoking in his pub to 25percent of the occupiable floor space and see restaurateur page 1 0 sfjfgw close encounters staff photomike barrett stouflville spirit winger daniel kim is on top of collingwood blues goalie david alexander but cant get a shot off action came thursday on opening night in the provincial junior a hockey league the spirit won 6- 1 see page 25 for more on the penaltyfilled game the spirit honoured local emergency workers during opening ceremonies town and country realty ltd 6400888