Megan Stewart
Van. Courier

Bordered by Ontario Street in the west and Knight Street in the east, Sunset begins at 41st Avenue and continues south toward the Fraser River. The neighbourhood was once part of the incorporated District of South Vancouver and amalgamated with Vancouver in 1929. This southern slope was farmland and clusters of homes and villages, the first which were established in the 1860s.

From the Fraser River, it could take a day’s journey to reach the Granville Townsite – present day Gastown – by rowboat or through swamp and uncleared forest. Westminster Avenue – Main Street today – was pushed south from Mount Pleasant in 1910. Streets were named for property owners but many have since become numbered avenues and in 1900, 20 acres west of Fraser Street, then known as North Arm Road, sold for $2,000.

Today, lots on the same land a tenth the size of one acre are listed as high as $1.4 million.

The neighbourhood was home to Vancouverites of Europeans descent and, increasingly through the century, residents of Indian and Chinese heritage.

The number of Punjabi speakers has increased consistently for decades and in the last 10 years became the most common language in Sunset. More than one in four, or 26 per cent of people living in Sunset, spoke Punjabi as their first language compared to less than three per cent of the general city population. In 2006, twenty-one per cent spoke Chinese and 24 per cent spoke English. Vietnamese and Tagalog are each spoken at twice the average rate across Vancouver.

Businesses, restaurants and services cater to these communities, particularly along the thoroughfares of Fraser and Main streets, and prominent among them was the Punjabi Market.

Once known for the highest concentration of jewelry stores in Canada, the Punjabi Market now counts numerous empty store fronts and declining traffic.

Unlike rising retail property value across the city, assessments in this specific pocket declined 15 per cent since last year as businesses relocate to Surrey.

View the “Then and Now” photos HERE.

© Copyright 2013

Andrew Fleming
Van. Courier

Kensington-Cedar Cottage is a difficult neighbourhood to pin down. Sprawling more than seven square kilometres between Fraser and Nanaimo streets and from East 41st Avenue to Broadway (or East 16th between Fraser and Clark), it has close to 50,000 people who call the ‘hood home, more than nearby standalone cities such as Port Moody or West Vancouver.

One problem is that many people don’t refer to it as Kensington-Cedar Cottage. Even on the City of Vancouver’s new $3-million website, the area is often referred to simply as Kensington, which is generally considered the section south of Kingsway that was named for an historic British palace – which is why nearby streets have such regal names as Windsor, King Edward and Prince Albert. And, just as people often misidentify John Hendry Park as Trout Lake Park – Hendry was a former lumber baron who used the lake for his mill and his descendants later donated the land – most people refer to the Cedar Cottage district simply as “near Trout Lake.” The area was originally named Cedar Cottage after a former train stop, itself named for, you guessed it, a nearby cedar cottage.

The entire region south of 15th Avenue was known as South Vancouver until its amalgamation into Vancouver in 1929, and the intersection near Kingsway and Commercial Street was a main hub due to its proximity to the lake.

The neighbourhood is now one of the most ethnically diverse in the city, with only a third of residents claiming English as their mother tongue. An equal number speak Chinese as their first language and it is also home to the Croatian Cultural Centre, the German community’s ersatz Alpen Club and the annual Philippine Pinoy Fiesta parade, Latin Summer Fest and National Aboriginal Day celebrations.

Despite KCC’s Britannic nomenclature, the culture it is now most closely associated with is Vietnamese. Two years ago, a group of local residents  – primarily first- and second-generation “boat people” who escaped by sea from the Vietnam War and settled nearby – successfully petitioned city council to rename a section of Kingsway Little Saigon.

Kensington-Cedar Cottage: Neighbourhood by the Numbers

 

15.9: In millions of dollars, the final cost of the new Trout Lake rink and community centre, roughly three times more than the original estimate the City gave before the 2003 Olympic plebiscite.

28: Number of years since the Public Dreams Society first began hosting Illuminares Lantern Festivals at John Hendry Park. The non-profit arts group recently announced this year’s event would be their last due to lack of funding.

3,000: Approximate number of signatures on a 2011 petition presented to city council requesting the creation of a special Little Saigon business district on Kingsway Avenue.

22: Number of individual bronze sculptures by artist Tom Dean, including a rather terrifying leopard having its ear gnawed by a goat, located outside the new Kensington library branch.

7: Number of halls or meeting rooms available to rent for special events at the Croatian Cultural Centre.

17: Number of storeys of a residential tower at King Edward Village, built by the Aquilini Group and completed in 2008, the neighbourhood’s tallest building.

100: Age of the redeveloped Charles Dickens elementary school, the first school in the Vancouver school district to meet LEED environmental standards.

84: Units of E. coli per 100 millilitres of water, as measured by Vancouver Coastal Health in Trout Lake on Aug. 9. The amount is the third highest in the city but much lower then the now-closed Second Beach and Sunset Beach.

1: Number of KFC outlets in KCC.

0: Number of trout in Trout Lake

 

Kensington-Cedar Cottage: Rebranding of Kingsway area to ‘Little Saigon’ attracting …

 

by Jennifer Thuncher

 

Drive along Kingsway Street towards New Westminster, blink and you’ll probably miss Vancouver’s Little Saigon, which encompasses the area between Fraser and Knight streets.

Made up of myriad shops and eateries, the strip officially became Little Saigon in May to little mainstream media fanfare but much local ceremony after a neighbourhood campaign that included a petition signed by 3,000 in support of recognizing the contribution made to the area by Vietnamese residents.

The May 12 event was marked by speeches and a parade attended by Mayor Gregor Robertson and several fellow council members, including Vision Vancouver Coun. Kerry Jang, who in 2011 put forward the motion to council to brand the area.

Three months after the area’s official rebranding, Jang said so far the response from Vancouverites “has been great.”

As in similar officially sanctioned Vietnamese communities across North America, a Little Saigon street sign and branded banners run the length of the strip. 

Chris Lien, owner of the popular Tung Hing Bakery on Kingsway for more than 10 years, said he has seen a lot of changes in the make up of his neighbourhood over the last decade and is “ambivalent” about the designation.

“I have seen quite a lot more tourists because it has been called Little Saigon,” he said, but with the increase in tourists he has also seen more problems with garbage and parking.

Singling out the Vietnamese community for recognition aroused more decided opposition. A “Stop Little Saigon” petition signed by 100 local residents circulated and some residents continue to question the attention given to one group over others. Ambrose Oba-Underwood, who has lived in Kensington-Cedar Cottage for more than 12 years, has no qualms with the Vietnamese who live and work in the area, but feels the special designation could be “discouraging to non-Vietnamese businesses.”

He would have preferred no branding at all as a more inclusive option for his community, he told the Courier by email.

Oba-Underwood said it has been a sensitive issue for him to speak publicly about and the reaction from some has been “ironic.”

“[With] a few people branding me a racist due to the fact that I don’t support branding an area racially,” he said.

According to Jang, the Little Saigon christening was an entirely grassroots movement spearheaded and sustained by the people of Vietnamese heritage who live or own businesses in the area. And it “didn’t cost the city a penny” because the Little Saigon supporters raised all the money themselves for everything from the May party to steel clamps holding the street banners to the poles, said Jang.

Jang said there are also plans for a monument in the community to recognize the sacrifices made by the refugees from Vietnam who came to Vancouver in the 1970s with very little and went on to make a life for themselves and for the next generation.

Vietnam‘s Saigon, known as Ho Chi Minh City since the close of the Vietnam War, is the country’s largest city. The city has gone by various names over time. From the French conquest in the 1860s, to 1975 and the communist takeover after the war it was officially known as Saigon, which is a Westernized version of a previous name. Other official Little Saigons can be found in California, Texas and Melbourne, Australia.

Kensington-Cedar Cottage: Vietnamese nail salons dominate Kingsway

Orchid Beauty Centre attracts clientele of all backgrounds, ages

 

Sandra Thomas

The exterior of Orchid Beauty Centre on Kingsway Street in Kensington-Cedar Cottage is a colourful mix of turquoise-green vinyl siding, a pink door and purple writing. And while the odd-looking building could be easily mistaken for a garden shed, it’s actually one of the most popular nail salons on Kingsway Street.

Just moments after the front door opened last Friday, women of every nationality, age and demographic began trickling through the door. And while at 10 a.m. there were only three employees tending to a handful of customers, by 11 a.m. there were eight staff members painting toes, scrubbing feet or applying artificial nails to seven women, while as many sat waiting for their turn for a salon treatment.

Owner Anna Ly opened the shop 13 years ago and from the number of clients frequenting the salon on this day, it was obviously a wise decision. Ly also owns a second Orchid Beauty Centre location on East Broadway and recently celebrated the grand opening of a third shop on Lougheed Highway in Burnaby.

Ly immigrated to Canada from Vietnam with her husband and young daughter in 1991, first moving to New Brunswick before heading west to Edmonton and finally settling in Vancouver. Lyn had her second child and then in 2000 opened Orchid Beauty Centre on Kingsway.

The entire length of Kingsway has no lack of nail and beauty salons, including Ngoc & Nga Beauty Salon, Jenny Hair Design, Shed O Beauty Care, Wendy Hair Salon, and Bianca’s Hair Salon and Boutique, but they’re particularly prevalent in and around the business district now officially known as “Little Saigon,” the stretch of street between Fraser and Knight streets. It’s there where you’ll find Orchid Beauty Centre at 1298 Kingsway.

According to Aprodicio Laquian, professor emeritus with the Centre for Human Settlements Community and Regional Planning at the University of B.C., it’s no coincidence the majority of nail and beauty salons along Kingsway, and even across North America, are operated by Vietnamese owners.

“Like China, Vietnam uses an internal passport system called ‘ho khau‘ that controls migration,” Laquian wrote in part in an email to the Courier. “As the country’s economy boomed, cities needed more workers so the ho khau was relaxed and millions of peasants flocked to the cities.”

Laquian noted that while the population of Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, increased from 2.7 million in 1999 to 6.5 million in 2009, the majority of migrants did not have technical skills so barber shops and beauty and nail salons boomed. He added these “informal sector” jobs were exported as former Vietnamese residents moved abroad.

“The migration of rural folks to cities also applies to the proliferation of pho or noodle shops not just in Vancouver, but in other countries,” said Laquian. “I was in Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, Da Nang and Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City] recently and mostly subsisted on delicious pho from street vendors.”

He added the fact Vietnamese rule the world of nails and beauty in North America is likely not cultural.

“It could be as simple as a Vietnamese group cornering the market for nail salons, the purchase of equipment, facilities, training programs, like South Asians cornering the taxi business or the Vietnamese cornering the corner store business in New York,” said Laquian.

But for Orchid Beauty Centre owner and Vietnam transplant Ly, it’s more than a matter of culture or practicality that drives her every day.

“I love Vancouver,” said Ly, while filing a customer’s fingernails. “And I love what I do.”

© Copyright 2013

Cheryl Rossi
Van. Courier

The formerly working-class neighbourhood of Hastings-Sunrise – which stretches from Nanaimo Street east to Boundary Road, and Burrard Inlet south to East Broadway – has been considered one to watch for at least five years. En Route magazine listed the area as one of “Canada’s next great neighbourhoods” last year, although all of the highlighted businesses rest on the Grandview-Woodland side of Nanaimo.

Last year the Hastings North Business Improvement Association controversially rebranded the commercial area, between Renfrew and Commercial Drive, East Village.

Laughing Bean Coffee at East Hastings and Slocan has long been a local favourite while newer restaurants on the edge of Hastings-Sunrise that include The Red Wagon and Tacofino Commissary draw diners to the vicinity. The beloved but now defunct Nanaimo/Vancouver band Apollo Ghosts, even released an album called Hastings Sunrise in 2008.

Hastings-Sunrise was once home to a popular resort that attracted loggers, mill workers and vacationers. The settlement, named Hastings Townsite in 1869 in honour of visiting Admiral G.F. Hastings, remained a leisure destination through the turn of the century with visitors enjoying the hotel and racetrack in Hastings Park, according to the BIA’s website. A new subdivision called Sunrise Ridge near First Avenue prompted the Hastings-Sunrise name in the 1940s, according to historian John Atkin. He believes the city adopted the name in the 1960s. The Pacific National Exhibition tradeshow for dairy farmers, logging and horticultural demonstrations started in 1910.

Hastings-Sunrise, an ethnically diverse and primarily a residential area, is home to larger numbers of Cantonese, Vietnamese and Italian speakers than other Vancouver neighbourhoods. A handful of businesses that are more than 40 years old operate in Hastings-Sunrise. Italian delis, grocery shops and a large T&T Asian supermarket, which reflects the shift in immigrant settlement in the vicinity, also operate in the area.

While traffic thunders down East Hastings, Nanaimo and Dundas streets, residential roads and lanes burst with colourful and plentiful gardens.

© Copyright (c) Vancouver Courier

Bob Mackin
Van. Courier

Edgewater Casino can stay at the Plaza of Nations until the end of 2016 after receiving unanimous approval Monday from the city’s Development Permit Board.

The Paragon Gaming-owned casino’s temporary use of the Enterprise Hall and 138 parking spots was to expire July 31. Edgewater opened Feb. 4, 2005 with a four-year sunset clause that was extended to 2013 after Las Vegas-headquartered Paragon bought the casino out of bankruptcy in 2006.

Paragon announced a deal with B.C. Pavilion Corporation in March 2010 to build a $450 million casino and hotel complex connected to B.C. Place Stadium’s west side. In April 2011, city council unanimously rejected the proposed expansion from 75 gambling tables to 150 and 600 slot machines to 1,500. In a compromise, Paragon was permitted to move the existing licence and received rezoning of the PavCo site in November 2011.

Last year, Edgewater extended its lease with Plaza of Nations landlord Canadian Metropolitan Properties until the end of 2015. The B.C. Place project is in limbo while Paragon seeks partners.

With no fanfare, Paragon and PavCo quietly launched a new website in June about the project called Site10a.com. The website said a new master development agreement was signed in March, before the provincial election, and that PavCo is expecting $3 million annual lease revenue for a 70-year term from the new Edgewater. The payments are intended to lessen PavCo’s debt for the $514 million B.C. Place renovations. The original lease was supposed to be worth $6 million a year.

The website contains no new architectural drawings or indication of whether the complex will be substantially smaller than originally planned.

“We’re not prepared to talk about that at all,” Paragon vice-president of planning John Cahill told the Courier Monday. “Today’s focus was getting the extension.”

Asked to confirm or deny whether one of the partners Paragon has approached is Burnaby-based Gateway Casinos, Cahill said. “I’m not going to talk about that at all, its not appropriate at this time.”

The only speaker at the meeting was Sandy Garossino, who led Vancouver Not Vegas’s successful 2011 anti-expansion campaign. She said Paragon, PavCo and B.C. Lottery Corporation owe the public answers on what is being proposed, including who would finance and operate the new Edgewater.

“All of those things are material and are in the public interest to know,” Garossino said. “I still think [Paragon president] Scott Menke was telling the truth when he said two years ago that this was an all or nothing deal, that the current amount of slot machines and gaming tables weren’t enough.”

Edgewater sent almost $6.1 million in royalties to city hall for the year ended March 31, 2013, substantially less than the $10 million to $12 million envisioned in 2006.

“I can’t imagine how they can increase their costs, bear the incredible infrastructure, build a parkade at the same amount of revenue,” Garossino said. “There has to be more and we’re not being told.”

Garossino said Vancouver Not Vegas is proceeding with its petition to the B.C. Supreme Court to quash the Edgewater move because it claims neither the city nor PavCo followed procedures.

While Paragon is in talks with partners to bring the new Edgewater to fruition, Menke and CEO Diana Bennett were contracted last month to manage the struggling Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Paragon is also exiting its River Cree Casino partnership with the Enoch Cree First in Edmonton. River Cree defaulted on a $111 million loan in April 2012 but continues to operate.

Early Jan. 20, Surrey City Council voted against Gateway’s proposal for a $100 million South Surrey casino. Gateway’s backer is Toronto private equity firm Catalyst Investment Group. When Deputy Premier Rich Coleman was also the gambling minister, he met Feb. 5 with Catalyst chairman Gabriel de Alba and Feb. 12 with de Alba and CEO Newton Glassman. Coleman’s agenda does not list the reasons for the meetings. Glassman did not respond to an interview request.

© Copyright (c) Vancouver Courier

Murals galore in city’s oldest residential neighbourhood

Michael Kissinger
Van. Courier

As part of the Courier’s Vancouver Special neighbourhood series on Strathcona, we took to the streets and talked to Esther Rausenberg and Richard Tetrault who’ve been instrumental in creating, organizing and drawing attention to the dozens of murals in and around Strathcona.

Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vTbzmTFalO8

 

© Copyright (c) Vancouver Courier

Drew McLauchlan
Van. Courier

As Vancouver’s oldest residential neighbourhood, Strathcona has a long and rich history that is stained with soot, fire and grinding poverty. Despite plots of gentrification, however, its residents have always held on to the working class soul of the community.

Strathcona is bordered by Burrard Inlet to the north, Clark Drive to the east, False Creek to the south, and Chinatown to the west. Before European settlement, the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations people occupied the area. Strathcona began as a camp of cabins built around Stamp’s Mill (later renamed Hastings Sawmill.) The early neighbourhood served as a hub for labourers migrating from across the country, China, the U.S. and Europe, who were drawn to Canada’s western frontier.

As a result of the mass influx of workers and their families, Strathcona was the location of Vancouver’s first school: Hastings Mill School, a single-room schoolhouse that also served the children of Moodyville (now North Vancouver.) The Hastings Sawmill was one of the few structures to survive the Great Vancouver Fire of June 1886 and its unlikely survival would later reflect the perseverance of Strathcona’s heritage throughout the next century.

Strathcona takes its name from Lord Strathcona (Sir Donald A. Smith,) who drove the last spike completing the first transcontinental railway at Craigellachie, B.C.

During the 1960s, Strathcona was considered a slum by many. City planners considered demolishing a large portion of the neighbourhood to make room for an interurban freeway that would have also affected much of Gastown and Chinatown. The first part of the freeway, the Georgia Viaduct, was completed and effectively destroyed a section of Strathcona called Hogan’s Alley. Hogan’s Alley was Vancouver’s predominantly black neighbourhood. The rest of the freeway never became a reality.

Though many treat the neighbourhood as a temporary home before moving to other areas of the city, a sense of pride and activism remains. On April 1, 200 residents protested what they saw as a hastily made plan by the city to remove the viaduct. The result, they say, would be an increase in traffic and congestion in Strathcona, which remains one of the few affordable options for real estate in Vancouver.

© Copyright (c) Vancouver Courier

City staff wants two more years of study

Mike Howell
Van. Courier

It would cost up to $55 million to demolish the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts and replace them with a new link from Georgia Street to existing roads in Northeast False Creek.

The tab for such a project climbs to more than $130 million when costs are calculated to modify existing streets, parks, utilities, build more parks and conduct soil remediation on what were former industrial lands.

City staff outlined the costs in a report released Wednesday that strongly suggests the 1970s era hulking structures be demolished to open up the area for parkland, housing and better connections between neighbourhoods.

But the report stopped short of recommending city council give the green light to take down the viaducts until more planning work is done on the feasibility of the demolition and the future of the eastern core of the city.

“The issues under study, related to the potential removal of the viaducts, are complex and there is a significant amount of work still to be done before a final report is brought before council,” said the report authored by Brian Jackson, the city’s head planner.

Approximately $1 million has been spent to date on the planning and engineering work related to the removal of the viaducts. But city staff wants two more years and $2.4 million to spend on a “work program” to examine the bigger picture of what removing the viaducts will mean for the neighbourhood and surrounding communities.

There’s also the problem of what to do about the 43,000 vehicles per day that use the viaducts, which are well-used links in and out of downtown for the movement of goods.

The report notes, however, that as time passes, the cost of removing the viaducts will become “more and more challenging,” given the need for temporary roads and deconstruction sites to facilitate the removal of the viaducts.

Retaining the viaducts would cost up to $120 million, if rehabilitation, maintenance and eventual replacement costs are factored in over 40 years, the report said.

If the viaducts were demolished, it would free up 10 acres of land worth up to $110 million. Although staff’s desire is to have the land devoted for public open space, affordable housing and other public uses, the report notes some of the land could be sold for development.

The report also points out removal of the viaducts has “significant positive impacts” to Concord Pacific’s lands, which are adjacent to the viaducts and would require an agreement with the city to accommodate a new street network.

“For Concord, this will produce new development parcels which will need to consider tower placement and density, park configuration and programming and soils contamination,” the report said.

The suggestion to demolish the viaducts continues an emerging trend in North American cities. The report mentions Boston, at great expense, eliminated its elevated waterfront freeway and connected that city’s downtown to the waterfront.

In San Francisco, politicians there elected to tear down the Embarcadero freeway and reconnect several of that city’s neighbourhoods.

“In every city’s evolution, there are rare opportunities to take bold city-building steps to advance the city’s goals and liveability, or correct a past planning wrong,” the staff report said. “The potential removal of the viaducts provides an opportunity for the City of Vancouver to do both.”

With city staff wanting at least two years to plan for the removal of the viaducts, the next opportunity for council to make a final decision on the viaducts’ fate may not come before a new council is elected in the fall of 2014.

If the council of the day decides the viaducts should be demolished, it could take up to six years before they come down.

© Copyright (c) Vancouver Courier

Andrew Fleming
Van. Courier

1.5: In kilometres, the distance between Grandview Highway and Venables Street, the stretch widely considered as “The Drive” despite the street continuing for several more blocks in both direction.

2: Number of unaffiliated vegetarian restaurants with nearly identical French names. The original Café Du Soleil set up shop in 1992 while the larger Café Deux Soleils down the street opened its doors a few years later.

10: Percentage of residents who are of aboriginal descent, according to the 2011 census, eight per cent higher than the city-wide average.

4: Number of nationalities represented in the name of the WISE Hall. Homesick U.K. residents first started the social club in 1957 and the acronym was chosen represent its predominantly Welsh, Irish, Scottish and English membership.

40: In degrees Celsius, the typical temperature inside a class at Bikram Yoga Commercial Drive.

2.95: Longstanding cost of the popular all-day breakfast special at Bon’s Off Broadway restaurant.

125: Number of buildings listed on the city’s heritage register. Roughly a quarter of all homes in Grandview-Woodland were built before 1946.

66: Percentage of residents who rent their homes, 14 per cent higher than the citywide average, according to the 2011 census.

1: Number of bike polo courts. The Grandview Park playing area, completed in 2011 at a cost of $90,000, is said to be the first public court in the world designed specifically for bike polo.

385: Total number of seats available between the Vancouver East Cultural Centre’s two theatres. The Cultch’s Historical Theatre has a maximum capacity of 285 (although most shows have 195 seats) and the new Vancity Culture Lab can handle up to 100 audience members.

© Copyright (c) Vancouver Courier

Van. Courier

Pictures of Grandview and Woodland Past and Present

© Copyright (c) Vancouver Courier

Fiona Hughes
Van. Courier

It’s officially known as Grandview-Woodland, but most Vancouverites refer to the neighbourhood that is bounded by Broadway to the south, Burrard Inlet to the north, Clark Drive to the west and to Nanaimo Street to the east as the Commercial Drive area.

It’s one of Vancouver’s most diverse neighbourhoods in terms of people, housing and land use and also one of its oldest. The 448-hectare East Side neighbourhood is home to 27,297 people, according to the 2011 census, which is a decline of about 900 people from six years earlier. Similar to the rest of the city, the largest age group is 30 to 44 year olds. More than two-thirds of the area residents are renters living in low-rise apartment buildings whose median household income is $35,342 (the city average is $47,299). About 10 per cent of the population self-identify as being aboriginal.

First-time visitors to the neighbourhood likely get a good sense that Grandview-Woodland is a little different thanks to Ken Lum’s famous “East Van” cross at Clark Drive and Great Northern Way. And while there is no poodle on a pole à la Main Street, there is an art installation more symbolic of the area – a giant blue cappuccino cup in Grandview Park (albeit one that’s now a bit chipped and used as a garbage receptacle).

Indeed, “the Drive,” which is the heart of the area, is home to such a concentration of cafes it’s a marvel they can all stay in business. But each is well-patronized by its own unique clientele that makes café hopping akin to a round-the-world trip without the need for a passport or different currency.

But it’s not all la dolce vita sipping espressos and cappuccinos. Because demand for new development is growing, city staff are working on an official plan to ensure that future growth in Grandview-Woodland meets the needs of the community. The area has been the centre of many protests, including one demonstration three years ago against the upgrading of Grandview Park. In recent weeks, a house under construction on East First Avenue near Victoria Drive was the target of an arsonist while some businesses have been vandalized by so-called anarchists protesting gentrification of the area. Stay tuned.

© Copyright (c) Vancouver Courier