BUFFALO, N.Y. — 10 years ago this week:
Law enforcement agencies began warning that heroin, already a problem associated with overdose deaths, was becoming deadlier after they started noticing the heroin was being spiked with fentanyl. Overdose deaths involving heroin spiked with fentanyl continue unabated to this day.
A plan was being floated to spend up to $6 billion to bring high speed rail to the upstate corridor from New York Coty to Niagara Falls. Ten years later the plan has gone nowhere, largely due to lack of demand, and the price tag adjusted for inflation would be closer to $10 billion today.
20 years ago this week:
Controversy brewed over the movie "The Passion of Christ", a film starring Mel Gibson which told the story of the last hours in the life of Jesus. Beyond the graphic violence in the film, some insisted it was anti Semitic in the way it portrayed the treatment of Jesus by Jews.
Bingo halls were the latest places indoors to ban smoking unless the operators were granted a waiver from health officials. To obtain one they would have to construct an enclosed, separately ventilated room for players who wanted to smoke.
An association was starting to be drawn between NASCAR fans and republicans, so much so, that the GOP began holding rallies and voter registration drives at tracks and sending candidates to stump for votes at the tracks.
A man who obtained the phone number 867-5309 for the New York City area code was attempting to sell it on eBay. The phone number had become popularized in the hit song "Jenny" by Tommy Tutone and online bids eventually approached $1 million.
30 years ago this week:
In the days before being able to buy concert tickets on line, music fans still had to line up in person at the Memorial Auditorium box office or other outlets to secure tickets to see their favorite shows. When tickets went on sale for a Garth Brooks concert in Buffalo at the Aud they sold out in one hour, which concert promoters said was the fastest sellout ever recorded in Buffalo up to that point in time, A second show was quickly added and it sold out in just one hour and 15 minutes. Floor seat tickets for the concerts went for $17.75.
The Buffalo Public Schools proposed budget came in at a record $365 million. It is currently more than $1,1 billion.
The winter Olympic games opened in Lillehammer , Norway and would be marked by a showdown on the ice between figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding.
40 years this week:
Amid almost constant news of factory and plant closings Buffalo's economy was changing and the opening of a major development downtown signaled a rebirth in the minds of civic leaders. The opening of it, this week in 1984, came after a $41 million investment to repurpose an existing landmark structure. It is also the subject of this week's News 2 you Pop Quiz. (for the answer, watch the conclusion of the video attached to this story).
At the US District Courthouse downtown Buffalo Bills pro bowl running back Joe Cribbs was testifying after being sued by the team and its owner Ralph Wilson. The Bills claimed Cribbs violated a right of first refusal clause in his contract when he signed a deal to play for the Birmingham Stallions of the new United States Football League. Lawyers for Cribbs argued that clause only applied to NFL teams, not those in the USFL, while noting that when Cribbs signed with the Bills the USFL didn't even exist.
Cribbs won the case and was soon to join the Stallions in time for the inaugural USFL season for which training camps were already underway.
Meanwhile, at another USFL training camp outside of Houston, Texas another guy who didn't think much of playing in Buffalo or for the Bills who had drafted him was preparing to start his professional career.
However, Jim Kelly's feelings about the area would eventually change, and quite drastically, compared to how he felt about things this week in 1984...when it was all News 2 You.
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