Surrey Leader - Litterbugs

It's been awhile since I last wrote about the Surrey Leader, mainly past posts have been lack of it being delivered, just showing up randomly every now and then. Oh yes, those were the good days!
Here's a link to a post I wrote about the Surrey Leader a few years ago http://cherylrhodes.blogspot.ca/2009/12/surrey-leader.ht
ml and today's post will cover some of the same topics.

The building in downtown Cloverdale on the corner of 176th Street and 57th Avenue will always be known to me as the Surrey Leader building. They moved out of there many years ago and a pawn shop was there for years and now currently houses a home décor shop, La Belle Vie.

When I was growing up the Surrey Leader was delivered on Thursdays by Canada Post. It was a paid subscription service. The paper came folded up like most newspapers did back then and you had to unfold it and read a big paper. My mother got fed up with the views of the Surrey Leader and cancelled the subscription. One day it showed up on our doorstep and she phoned in to the Surrey Leader to see why they'd delivered it. She was told it was a new free service and was asked how she liked it. "I don't," said my mother, "I cancelled my subscription because all you ever write about is abortion and the school board. Today when I opened up the paper you delivered I see that's what you're still writing about: the school board and abortion."

Around then she coined the term for this new free delivery service as the Shitty Leader. The name has stuck with me all my life. That's the perfect name for this newspaper. I actually read a copy a few years ago and although they had some other articles in it, yes abortion and the school board were covered too.

I don't read the newspaper myself, a lot of it stemming back to my mother's views and quite rightly nicknamed the Shitty Leader.

When we bought our house in 2007 we were getting multiple copies of the Leader delivered to our house. The delivery person must have been used to the house being vacant and the doorstep and over the backyard fence became dumping grounds for the Shitty Leader. I did complain. How many copies of the newspaper do they think I need to read? Not stacks. If I was going to read it I'd only need one copy. To be fair they did act on my complaint and got the multiple newspapers being dumped at my house cut back to one.

I've also seen copies of the Surrey Leader dumped under hedges and around Cloverdale Creek in the 57th Avenue section. This is one newspaper that is very comfortable being labeled litterbugs.

On April 2, 2014 I came home to find the Surrey Leader in multiple pieces scattered all over my yard and down the street. I took photos:

                                                   

I sent the photos and what I thought of them littering to the Surrey Leader. I'm still waiting for a response. I won't hold my breath. It's not like this company actually cares about pissing off the residents of Surrey.

On April 24, 2014 the Surrey Leader plus all the advertising inside is scattered all over my garden, front yard, side yard, and down the street. There is more than one copy. I've had to spend time picking the Shitty Leader up and putting it in the recycle bin again.


I've tried to think up what can be done about this seeing as how the Surrey Leader won't respond to complaints about being litterbugs. I thought about driving it over to their new digs on 152 Street and scattering it around their parking lot to see how they like it. But in this day and age of video cameras and surveillance that would be dumb and lowering myself to their level by being a litterbug. The things I can come up with are box them up, phone a courier that does COD, and ship it back to the Surrey Leader. What about writing about an invoice for $25 for cleaning up their mess and submitting it to them. If they don't pay, take them to small claims court. I'm reminded of a time my father took someone to small claims court over $10 just for the principal of the thing.


I struggle with the decision to ask Surrey Leader to stop all delivery to my house. I know some poor person who can't find a job anywhere else is stuck delivering this local paper and getting paid by each one delivered. I hate to take that money away from someone who obviously desperately needs it to take this kind of job.


I've come up with a report card for the Surrey Leader or the Shitty Leader, whichever you want to call it:


Litterbugs - A+
Responding to complaints - Fail
Being a good corporate citizen - Fail
Being a good Surrey, BC citizen - Fail
Caring about the environment - Fail

Surrey Leader showing up again

It looks like the Surrey Leader may have found a new carrier for our area in Cloverdale because we've been receiving their newspapers for about a month now. Whenever they get a good delivery person they usually quit after a couple of months or so. I guess they find another job and move on and then it takes weeks or months to find a new carrier. The houses in this neighborhood are on good sized lots, like a quarter of an acre to an acre, so there's a fair amount of walking to do as opposed to newer neighborhoods where houses are built on small lots so less amount of walking for newspaper carriers who can deliver more papers and make more money.

Today was kind of ironic. With the delivery of the Surrey Leader was a note asking if we want to cancel the paper to phone a number provided.

I can only guess that someone at the Surrey Leader checks this blog from time to time, looked up my address, and the carrier stuck the note on my door. Either than or the whole neighborhood is getting the same note. Nice touch but I'd say due to the rare times we actually receive a Surrey Leader that its pointless to cancel. It almost seems like we already are cancelled and then surprise the Leader shows up for a few weeks and then goes into hiding again.

Though I admit the Surrey Leader usually ends up in my recycling bin unread. Its just not a big deal to me one way or the other if I receive it or if I read it.

But it is kind of fun to report when I don't get it!

Surrey Leader MIA again

For most of the summer we've been receiving the Surrey Leader regularly on Fridays and I think Wednesday is the other day it comes. I've often seen the woman delivering it early in the morning.

For the last couple of weeks there's been no sign of the Surrey Leader. Until today (Saturday) when I saw Friday's Surrey Leader and the Cloverdale Reporter in the mailbox.

Tucked in with it is another notice about how Surrey Leader carriers are needed in this area.

This is a nice quiet neighborhood. I wonder if the carriers find other jobs and abandon their route. Or is it harder to earn money in older neighborhoods. The houses around here are on quarter acre to half acre lots. That means a fair amount of walking between the houses. It would be faster (quicker income) to deliver papers to the newer subdivisions where the houses are a few feet apart. I suppose those are the golden routes for the delivery people

Surrey Leader delivery

Yesterday I received another elusive Surrey leader. In fact I received one this past Wednesday too. That makes more Surrey Leaders received in one week than the rest of the year put together. I saw yesterday's Leader in the mailbox when I was taking the dogs for a walk but I actually ran into the fellow delivering them just down the block and stopped to chat. I asked him if he was new and he said no. His route is in a different Cloverdale neighborhood and he said he's the substitute delivery person. He confirmed his first delivery to our neighborhood was last Friday. I told him that's the first Surrey Leader I've seen since January. He was quite surprised and pulled a little street and house map out of his pocket and asked where I lived. I pointed to my house, the house number is clearly marked on the delivery route. I said I just assumed there'd been no delivery person in our area because from time to time I get a notice in my mailbox that they're looking for paper carriers. He said something's not right. He asked if I'd complained about not receiving a paper and I said no. Its really no big deal to me one way or the other if I get one and I just figured there was no one assigned our route for the past few months.

I can figure this one out. Its happened plenty of times. The delivery person is dumping the newspapers somewhere instead of delivering them. Its quicker that way. And most likely why this person is out of a job. Someone on our neighborhood who actually likes reading the Surrey Leader must have complained they haven't been receiving them. Oh well. Wasn't me. Let's see how long it keeps up.

Rare delivery of a Surrey Leader

Hmm, one of those elusive Surrey Leaders showed up in my mailbox today. I think the last time I received one was back in January. I wonder if they've hired a new delivery person in Cloverdale. Too good to last....

Surrey Leader still not being delivered

Its been over a month (January 6) since I last received a Surrey Leader.

Not that I particularly care all that much other than the fact the paper is probably publishing current events about what is happening at Holland Park, the free events we can attend while the Olympics is on. I wouldn't mind reading about that.

I miss getting the Cloverdale Reporter which is slipped inside the Friday edition of the Surrey Leader.

For people in Cloverdale who are also inbetween carriers in their neighborhood, the Cloverdale Reporter's building is on 56A Avenue, just a little west of 176th Street. They have a stand outside their office during business hours and a newspaper can be picked up there.

Oh well, I have dogs to walk in that general direction anyway.

A rare Surrey Leader times 2 has been delivered

There must be yet another new delivery person in our Cloverdale neighborhood for the Surrey Leader. I've seen perhaps 4 newspapers in the past 3 months. Today I got 2 newspapers. One sitting at the end of my driveway about 20 feet from the front door. The second sitting about 5 feet from the front door. In the rain. Both soaking wet by the time I arrived home. Unreadable. Straight to the recycle bin. The Sunday, January 3, 2010 edition. One day late.

I mean, how difficult is it to put one newspaper in my mailbox that is attached to the side of my house next to my front door. That's what those 2 metal prongs sticking out of the mailbox are for - the newspapers.

And doesn't it figure. This one has the calendar with Surrey's recycling schedule for the year.

I guess I should thank my lucky stars. Last year I didn't get the Surrey Leader paper delivered the day they put the calendar inside the Leader. This year I got two. Unusable of course because they're saturated with rain.

Shoddy delivery for the Leader in Cloverdale

Following up my other post about the Surrey Leader, I have a few things to say about their sketchy delivery. And here I can’t fully blame the Leader. They must have a dickens of a time keeping delivery people employed because we keep getting notices in our mailbox that they’re looking for delivery people in our area. Sometimes weeks and months will go by without getting a newspaper, so that’s why I’m not too certain how many days a week its really delivered. I know its supposed to come on Fridays, with the Cloverdale Reporter inside, but it rarely arrives in my mailbox. Not that I care so much whether or not I receive the Leader, but I do like reading the Reporter because its style is more like how the Leader used to be many years ago covering community events and people who live in Cloverdale.

We had one good delivery person, a man in his thirties, this past summer. We regularly got the papers. But then he quit. Hopefully he found better work elsewhere and delivering the Leader was just a temporary situation for him. He was reliable, which is a whole lot more than I can say about any of the others. In the past couple of years there was one lazy sucker who’d deliver multiple copies of the Leader to my house. How many newspapers can I read? I just assumed he got paid by the paper and it was easier for him to dump multiple copies to some of his houses to make his route go faster. I stuck them in my recycle box. And then one day the delivery person, and I’m sure it was a kid, really ticked me off. In the summer we have designated days of the week and times we can run the sprinkler. I went outside and set the sprinkler in my front yard. From where it was set up, it was also getting our sidewalk inbetween the garden and house wet, including the area around the front door. When I came outside an hour and a half later to move the sprinkler, I had several soaking wet copies of the Leader sitting on my front doorstep. Now that kid had to run through the sprinkler in order to get the papers to that spot, so there’s no doubt in my mind that he knew the sprinkler was on. He could see it going back and forth, and the sidewalk and front door were wet. He could have put the newspapers in my driveway, four feet away from my front door. That area was dry, not being reached by the sprinkler. But no. He has to put multiple copies of the Leader on my front door mat. What a nasty, soggy mess. I picked it up and took it right to the recycle bin, only to discover that wet newsprint runs and marks up your hands and your clothes. I complained to the Leader about that. One soggy newspaper would have been bad enough, but a stack of them was another story.

That’s the only complaint I’ve made. Ever since then I’ve only received one copy of the paper delivered to my house. I don’t complain about not receiving the papers. This is one case where its better not to receive.

But what happens to the copies of the Leader that don’t get delivered? Its possible there is currently no delivery person in the area during that time. It seems the Leader goes through 5 or 6 delivery people a year in my neighborhood. I see a lot of things when I’m out walking my dogs. Over the years I’ve seen bundles of the Leader dumped in local ditches, in the alley that runs east and west between 177B and 179th Streets, behind 59th Avenue, in Cloverdale Creek, off 57 Avenue, close to 173 Street, and in the dumpster when I lived in Dogwood Gardens. Its very clear that the people who are getting paid per paper they deliver are finding it easier to dump them in mass quantities somewhere. I’m sure nobody complains that they’re not receiving the Leader.

Once again my copies of the Surrey Leader and Cloverdale Reporter that should have been delivered yesterday didn’t arrive. Though I did get the Leader this past Wednesday.

Hit or miss. That the delivery style of the Surrey Leader.

The Surrey Leader

When I was growing up in Cloverdale, the building on the northwest corner of 176th Street and 57th Avenue was home to the Surrey Leader. Sometime in the 1980’s the Surrey Leader relocated to a new building and their old building became a pawn shop and now La Belle Vie, a retail shop, is located here.

The Surrey Leader used to be a subscription only weekly newspaper, delivered on Thursdays. My parents had a subscription for many years until my mother cancelled it sometime in the mid or late seventies. It used to come in folded format, similar to the format still used today by the Vancouver Sun.

Two or three years after my mother cancelled her subscription, a copy of the Surrey Leader arrived in the mailbox. My mother phoned their office to find out what was going on. The receptionist told her the newspaper was now being delivered for free to all houses in Surrey and asked her how she liked it. “I don’t like it at all,” my mother responded. “The reason I cancelled my subscription a few years ago is because all your newspaper ever writes about is abortion and the school board. And after all these years, the newspaper I received today, that’s all you’re still writing about.” So my mother was an unhappy recipient of the free newspaper. We referred to it as the Shitty Leader.

Over the years the newspaper has transformed to a tabloid style of print and after all these years no longer devotes half its space to abortion, though the quality of the other articles is debatable. It eventually became a twice a week newspaper and then three times a week. How much of the Shitty Leader does one need dropped on their doorstep? I think it has again returned to a twice a week paper. I’m really not sure because delivery is sketchy.

When I was growing up the Surrey Leader included photos and articles of locals getting married. As I reached my late teens and early twenties I recognized a lot of former classmates featured in the wedding section. Somehow this feature has long since been dropped from the current edition. There were more articles about people in the community doing good things or interesting things. More articles about people involved in the arts, local kids doing good in Scouts or Guides, and high school band concerts. I think this had more to do with the weekly newspaper. The Province and the Sun, daily newspapers, covered the news. A weekly newspaper didn’t cover news so much because it was usually stale news by the time it hit the mailboxes, but it certainly covered community events.

The current Leader, covers some events, but its more news than coverage of local people.