Drake and its stripper bar will be converted to social housing
Jeff Lee
Sun
Mayor Sam Sullivan said the city bought the Drake as part of its long-term strategy to reduce homelessness. Photograph by : Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun
The City of Vancouver has bought the Drake Hotel, a Downtown Eastside strip club, from a company whose sole director and officer is a high-profile member of the Hells Angels.
Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan announced Thursday the city had paid $3.2 million for the hotel at 606 Powell St.
Assessment, land title and company records show the hotel was owned by a numbered company, 634321 BC Ltd., whose president, secretary and sole director is John Bryce, president of the Angels’ East End chapter in Vancouver as recently as April. It also shows the property with an assessed value of $1.14 million this year, just over a third of what the city paid.
Bryce confirmed in a telephone interview that he is the director of the company that sold the hotel to the city, but said he was only one of a number of owners. He refused to discuss the matter further. When asked if he was still the president of the chapter, he said “no,” then hung up.
However, as recently as two months ago, Bryce, 56, was identified as president of the chapter, which police have said is one of the most powerful Hells Angels groups in the province. In April, his son, Jonathan Bryce, was sentenced to six years in prison for cocaine trafficking and extortion.
Company records for 634321 BC Ltd. list Bryce’s registered address as 3270 Parker Ave. in Burnaby, which is the location of his Hi-Way Choppers motorcycle shop.
Sullivan’s office said the mayor didn’t know who owned the hotel and was unaware Bryce was a director of the company.
“The mayor was not aware of that, and he would not normally have been aware of who the owners are of a property the city buys,” said David Hurford, Sullivan’s press officer.
He also said the purchase price reflected the going market and the fact there were multiple bidders.
Hurford said the city often uses an agent to purchase properties and wouldn’t deal directly with an owner, but in this case he doesn’t know if the city was aware of the Hells Angels connection.
Sullivan said the city bought the hotel as part of its long-term strategy to reduce homelessness. For more than three years, the hotel’s 24 rooms have been vacant. Only the hotel’s 220-seat pub, which featured exotic dancers, continued to operate.
But the hotel’s gritty history changed this week after the city agreed to buy it and refurbish the rooms in the short term for people on assistance. In the process, it decided not to renew the hotel’s liquor licence.
This isn’t the first time the hotel was sought by government. Forests Minister Rich Coleman said he tried to buy the Drake earlier this year as part of the purchase of 10 Downtown Eastside rooming hotels.
Calls to Coleman’s office later to inquire whether he was aware of the Angels connection were not returned.
Julian Sher, an author and expert on outlaw motorcycle gangs, said Bryce is considered to be one of the most influential Hells Angels members, regardless of whether he’s still the president of the East End chapter.
“He was always seen as one of the godfathers of the B.C. Hells Angels,” Sher said.
Coleman, who attended the news conference with Sullivan at city hall, said the province wasn’t able to conclude a deal with the Drake’s owners, so the city agreed to purchase it instead. But the province will help with income and support programs for the residents who will begin to move in sometime in the fall.
Sullivan said the hotel could be redeveloped for a combination of assisted and market housing and commercial services. But for now, he said it and the 10 single-room occupancy hotels the province bought last spring have more than doubled the target of housing identified in the city’s Vancouver Homeless Action Plan.
Jill Davidson, the city’s homeless policy coordinator, estimated it will spend about $30,000 per unit to refurbish the Drake.
At least one Vancouver councillor was concerned after learning of the Hells Angels connection.
Raymond Louie said he’s heard Bryce’s name before but did not know that he was a director of the company that owned the Drake.
He said he was surprised and concerned, but also believes the city’s purchase of the hotel was appropriate.
“In the end I don’t think it [the Hells Angels connection] is material to the intent of what we are trying to accomplish because we are trying to provide low income housing and to redevelop the property for a positive outcome of the community.”
But Louie said the city also needs to know that taxpayers’ money doesn’t go to fund illegal activities of outlaw motorcycle gangs. He added he didn’t know whether the company that owned the Drake was directly connected to the Angels.
“I think these are good questions. I’ll be asking that the process be tightened up slightly, so that perhaps we do look at [the history of an owner],” he said.
“But undertaking that work will be substantial, because if it’s not the Hells Angels then it could be a group that is offshore.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
