Ucluelet’s Granny Matterson doesn’t like what she sees, and she’s not afraid to say so.
In an interview outside Matterson House Restaurant, where she works as a street-side greeter, Granny M had nothing good to say about the direction Ucluelet seems to be taking into its future. “These people got the imagination of a gnat,” she said, of developers, residents and the town governance.
The feisty Granny M, who declined to reveal her age, is dismayed by initiatives that are turning Ucluelet into a resort town like many others, and undermining the older, friendlier Ucluelet that she herself represents. She cites as an example the district’s “resort signage” initiative, based on signs council saw while on an expensive, taxpayer-funded junket to Whistler two years ago. That process eventually resulted in Granny M being outlawed on district property and replaced by “world-class resort signage.”
“Yeah right,” said Granny M. “Like people can read those [expletive deleted] signs. Council doesn’t get out much, do they? I been working this street near fifteen years, rain or bleeping shine,” she added, “and now I’m out of a job” — a fate she shares with those forced to sell and move away because of rising real estate and cost of living. “This town’s goin’ down the toilet,” she said. “But I been there before, and I ain’t gettin’ flushed.”
Already a veteran of several confrontations with the law, Raging Granny Matterson seems to take a certain satisfaction in standing her ground and having to be physically carried off district property. “That new bylaw guy’s a horndog,” she said with a wink. “He can pick me up any day of the week, if you know what I mean.”
Granny M assured the Tattler she plans to continue her battle against the homogenization of Ucluelet. “Think they can get rid of me just like that?” she said. “Me and Betty [Krawczyk, a famous Raging Granny] been talking, we got plans. Council can kiss my wrinkled, splintery ass.”
