Nothing Mr. Barry Beardsell says about my employer of the past 11 years, Lake City Casinos, surprises me anymore.

However Mr. Beardsell's comments made in a recent edition of The Morning Star were so erroneous and frustrating, I had to respond. It is quite obvious Mr. Beardsell has not stepped foot into the Vernon casino in a very long time, if at all.

We do have readily available, in plain sight (including the washrooms), large amounts of problem gambling paraphernalia all over our casino.

There is an electronic Responsible Play Information Centre, which is an interactive, stand-alone machine on the gaming floor.

All of Lake City Casino's staff are trained using a BCLC designed program to recognize and assist problem gamblers.

We offer a private, confidential room on site to complete voluntary self-exclusions from gambling.

This is a program I am personally involved with, and take this matter very seriously.

I am very confident in saying we have an excellent working relationship with the Vernon problem gambling councilor and his office.

For Mr. Beardsell to also comment that the casino has taken millions from Vernon and has given very little back unfortunately only confirms the public's adage on some politicians being uniformed, and self-serving bureaucrats.

I will not argue the amount that LCC Vernon has reported our patrons have played here, but do keep in mind that we do not have corporate people sitting on mounds of money smoking Cuban cigars and sipping liquor from fine snifters.

We are a highly regulated industry with money generated by gaming collected and distributed by a government body.

From small contributions like giving used decks of cards to local schools and community social groups, and donations of our empty drink bottles to local organization?s bottle drives, to sponsorship of major events in the city such as Funtastic and the Winter Carnival, we are extremely proud of LCC's Vernon?s additions to the community.

Of course there is always the intangible contributions that our 150 employees and families make to Vernon by way of spending our paycheques in the local businesses, paying city taxes, and re-electing (or not) our councilors and local government.

Brad Mitchell

transit woes

Many UBC-O students including myself have been waiting for an improvement to the Vernon transit system.

At last, many were very pleased to hear that Route 90-Connector to UBC-O (from Vernon's OC campus to UBC-O Kelowna campus) is going to be available for students.

However, it is to my understanding that this bus is for the UBC-O students so that they are able to attend their classes on time.

If this be the case, there is a huge error in the schedule as the bus arrives just in time for students to be late for their 8am classes as it arrives at 8:11am.

As a new student of UBC-O, I along with many other students struggle to find transportation to this campus.

In the environment of global warming and high fuel and transportation costs, the bus is a great idea but without a change in the schedule many students will still have to drive their vehicles which also add to the cost of education.

If Vernon Transit truly wants to help UBC-O students, it would be best that the bus arrives before 8 a.m. and leaves at a more popular class ending time.

Denee Woiden