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p 4 weekender saturday november 22 1997 st the tribune saturday november 22 1997 vol 13 no 47 comment opinions send your letters to the editor to the address below elfdrlal beware of scams its as traditional as the first snowfalls of winter every season brings out its scam artists promising services for a downpayment never to be seen again this winter is no exception and already some york region residents have been defrauded by opportunistic thieves who prey on gullible people especially seniors this particular swindler went door to door in various communities during october promising to plow drive ways and walkways for the entire winter season for a deposit of 100 or 150 after the first major snowfall hit nov 14 he failed to provide any snow removal services and did not return calls from customers or the police placed to his company york regional police know that at least one markham resident was a victim of this scam but have had a flood of calls from upset people from across york region who were conned by the man police are reminding homeowners that they should never hand out cash or cheques for any services to people who show up on the doorstep get a phone number and address and check them both out to confirm they are legitimate whenever possible use services or companies which have been recommended by friends or neighbours the same warnings apply to telephone or internet sales and especially giving out your credit card numbers beware for tis the season for some unscrupulous operators to rob the unsuspecting warners messed with the wrong brothers you want to read some dirty words ill give you some dirty words levis nike coca cola mcd onalds kel- loggs maybe not dirty words exactly but i could get in a lot of trouble for using them in vain in fact technically i could be sued just for putting them on this page those words are copyrighted which is to say they are owned by the corporations they represent and if you think the big corporations are bluffing try erecting a statue of oh say winnie the pooh in your town square some folks in white river ontario tried that a few years back white riverites figured they had a right the original winnie had been purchased as a bear cub by a soldier passing through white river on his way to europe back in 1914 white river had a faceful of disney lawyers before the foundation was laid turns out that disney corp owns the rights to winnie the pooh nobody can even use the name winnie the pooh without disneys okay and while were talking dirty here ill lay another bit of gutter talk on you casablanca you thought it was a city in north africa right nope and its not even a movie starring bogart and bergman officially and legally it is a copyright ed title owned by warner brothers a bunch of funny guys in hollywood found that out the hard way back after the war they announced plans to make a movie called a night in casablanca they were immediately served with a cease and desist order from the warner brothers lawyers the word casablanca was copyrighted said the writ unfortunately for the flesheating mouthpieces they were tangling with a troupe that ate their kind for breakfast the gang that wanted to make the movie a night in casablanca was the marx brothers the lawyers from warner brothers were attempting to intimidate the legendary gagster siblings groucho chico harpo et al instead what the lawyers got was a let- basic black arthur black ter from groucho dear warners apparently there is more than one way of conquering a city and holding it as your own for example up to the time that we contemplated making a picture i had no idea that the city of casablanca belonged to warner bmthers however it was only a few days after our announcement appeared that we received a long ominous legal document warning us not to use the name casablanca i just can t understand your attitude even if they plan on rereleasing your picture i am sure that the average movie fan could learn to distinguish between ingrid beigman and harpo i don t know whether i could but i certainly would like to tiy noisy snowmobilers are a dangerous nuisance dear editor with all the changes of the seasons that we experience this time of year we on church street experience one very unpleasant change that perhaps residents on other streets dont suffer to the same degree i am speaking of the arrival of the people that choose to race up and down our street on snowmobiles the first of these people that i saw this year was nov 14 at about 430 pm racing back and forth up and down the street faster than any cars this cowboy was not satisfied with that however because he returned about 7 pm shouting and hollering as jlietter he went across our yard through the garden around our tree back onto the road and down the street ours was not the only yard he drove through but i may have been the only person to call the police when the police officer arrived half an hour later she came 30 seconds after this person had paid a second visit and i had jumped in front of him as he again crossed our front yard the only description i could give police was that he wore a green coat a ball cap and was driving a black machine and towing a second person that was riding a childs sleigh we experience a flow of snowmo biles each evening after a snowfall and on weekends they drive past with a great noise heading for the con servation area at the top of our street this is annoying illegal and danger ous but i do draw the line when they unthinkingly or deliberately damage personal property and drive across pri vate yards like any group i guess snowmobil ers have some of their number who damage the reputation of the rest merlin upton church street you claim you own casablanca and that no one else can use that name with out your permission what about warner bmthers do you own that too you probably have the right to use the name warner but what about bmthers pmfessionally we were brothers long before you were even before us there had been other bmthers the smith brothers the bmthers karamazov dan bmuthers an outfielder with detroit and bmther can you spare a dime this was origi nally bmthers can you spare a dime but this was spreading a dime pretty thin the younger warner brother calls himself jack does he claim that too ft s not an original name was used long before he was born offhand i can think of two jacks there was jack of jack and the beanstalk and jack the ripper who cut quite a figure in his day this all adds up to a pretty bitter tirade but i don t mean to i love warn ers some of my best friends are warn er bmthers i have a hunch that this attempt to prevent usfmm using the title is the scheme of some ferretfaced shys ter serving an apprenticeship in your legal department well he won t get away with it we 11 fight him to the highest court no pasty- faced legal adventurer is going to cause bad blood between the warners and the marxes we are all bmthers under the skin and we 11 remain friends until the last reel of a night in casablanca goes tumbling over the spool signed gmucho marx groucho won the day the marx brothers movie a night in casablanca was made and released in 1946 without a peep from the warner brother lawyers who were obviously outbluffed by grouchos letter or perhaps they were just laughing too hard stouffv1lle tribune weekender jtroland comii y i- newspaper a metroland community mpwsnanftr patricia pappas publisher andrew mair editorinchief tracy kibble editor debra weller director of advertising mike rogerson retail advertising manager stacey allen classified manager barry goodyear director of distribution vivian oneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager about us news 905 6402100 retailsales 905 6402100 classifieds 9056402874 distribution 905 6402100 fax 905 6405477 hmaii thetribistarca 6244 main st the slouftvillc tribune pub- llshcd every tuesday tj aridsaiun jf ihet metroland prinli hshing and distribution group of commu- nity newspapers 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