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Video games gone from ferry

Gone are the days when passengers could while away the long ferry ride to the mainland with a few handfuls of spare change, playing the race car video game and munching chocolate bars and drinking pop. BC Ferries has quietly removed the video games and junk food vending machines from the Queen of Prince Rupert, saying that the corporation is "moving away" from these forms of entertainment. Spokesperson Deborah Marshall said the games and machines, which had been in the children's play area on the main level and a hallway on the cafeteria level, were taken out during the vessel's refit this spring. Passengers can buy food in the cafeteria, and when the cafeteria is closed the purser now has pop, chips and other treats for sale, Ms Marshall said. That means food is available on the QPR 24 hours a day, even without the vending machines. The machines were not big money-makers for BC Ferries or for the company which supplied them, she said, so the decision to remove them was partly financial. The video games may have entertained a few passengers, but they also generated noise complaints from people trying to sleep, Ms Marshall said. Ferries did not install any video games or vending machines on the new Northern Adventure, and is removing them from some of its other vessels. Ms Marshall said the only vessels which will continue to have video games are those which have an enclosed room for them.