Gift shop owner, who can’t take it after five years on Davie, forced to close

Bruce Constantineau
Sun

When it comes to the Canada Line’s impact on Yaletown retailers, Davie Street and Pacific Boulevard is ground zero.

Fencing surrounds a flurry of activity taking place 16 metres below ground level, in what will eventually be the Yaletown-Roundhouse station.

But above ground, merchants struggle to survive. Pedestrian traffic is way down, and so are revenues.

Quizno’s sandwich shop sales? Down 40 per cent. Dodi Market convenience store sales? Down 60 per cent.

Obsessions gift shop co-owner Alex Barker can’t take it any more. After five years in Yaletown, he’s closing his Davie Street store permanently this week to focus on three other profitable stores in his Vancouver retail chain.

“Canada Line has shut us down at that location and almost bankrupted us,” Barker said in an interview. “We’ve had to re-mortgage our home to the absolute maximum, and now we’re back to square-one. But we’re lucky because at least we have the means to keep going.

“I feel sorry for the people who only have one-store operations. Their creditors will pursue them for years.”

Yaletown Business Improvement Association executive director Annette O’Shea said the pedestrian traffic count at Davie and Pacific has plummeted from 3,500 a day two years ago to just 100 a day.

“So if you rely on foot traffic, you’re severely challenged,” she said.

Barker said average weekly sales at his Yaletown store fell from about $8,700 in 2005 to $4,900 this year.

Canada Line construction began in early 2006.

“There are days when we have less than $200 in sales,” Barker said. “There is clearly no point in renewing our lease.”

Dodi Market owner Myung Yim said his landlord cut his rent by 15 per cent this year, saving him about $350 a month, but that barely makes a difference to his mounting debt. He uses a growing line of credit against his family home to pull him through, hoping business will surge after construction ends in 2009.

“I have to keep the business open because if I close, I’ll get nothing,” Yim said.

“Nobody will buy into this situation now. No one.”

O’Shea said seven out of 16 Yaletown “fence-line merchants” — those who front the construction zone — have closed since construction began.

Her association has adopted several strategies to offset the damage, including doubling its marketing budget, producing shopping flyers, beefing up security in the area, and holding street festivals to draw pedestrian traffic to Yaletown.

Canada Line officials say they have helped where they can — by improving lighting, helping with security, building straighter fences to avoid creating corners, improving signage, promoting shopping in the area and improving Bill Curtis Plaza (at Davie and Maitland) to make it more appealing, and building a bridge on Mainland Street that runs over Davie.

But they insist there’s nothing they can do about providing compensation, which has become the universal demand from almost every embattled Canada Line retailer.

Canada Line Rapid Transit Inc. representative Alan Dever said there is simply no legislative environment in Canada to provide compensation for losses due to construction of public infrastructure projects.

“I don’t know what type of program you could put together,” he said in an interview. “How do you decide who gets help and who doesn’t? What do you do?

“That whole issue is really a larger debate, and there’s a good discussion to be had about the effect on some for the benefit of many. Then there’s the question of long-term benefit. Who’s going to benefit the most from having a station right across from their door?”

Canada Line officials say the disruption to Yaletown will be severely curtailed in about a year after completion of the Yaletown station’s exterior.

O’Shea said Canada Line’s disruption to Cambie Street merchants has received the most attention, but stressed that the damage to Yaletown retailers is just as severe.

“A 75-per-cent drop in sales hurts just as much here as it does when it’s experienced by someone on Cambie,” she said.

Her association won’t launch a lawsuit to press for government compensation for retailers, but it feels strongly that compensation should be paid.

“It’s amazing to me that three levels of government did not anticipate this kind of damage,” O’Shea said. “This isn’t some small construction project. It’s years and years of closed streets, and I question the idea that it’s for the greater good.

“How much greater does the good have to be to pay for the businesses that are dying here?”

Opus Hotel general manager Daniel Craig said all guests who reserve a room at the popular boutique hotel are told about the construction so they’re not shocked upon arrival.

He said the project has clearly hurt business, but feels any losses — especially in walk-in business — have been offset by gains in group sales and off-site catering.

“The construction presents a visual challenge but fortunately, we have a very loyal clientele,” Craig said. “There are not a lot of other options in Vancouver if you want to patronize a contemporary boutique hotel.”

Browns Restaurant Bar owner Bill Marsh said his Mainland Street establishment offset the Canada Line impact by making the premises as appealing as possible. Project construction began shortly after his bar opened.

“We looked at our own internal systems to make sure our food quality and service were where they needed to be,” Marsh said. “We also renovated a year after opening because the room just wasn’t where it needed to be. It made us a stronger business in the long run, and our sales improved by 30 per cent last year.”

He said some of the improved business came after the Mainland Street bridge, but also credits the bar’s improved food, service and look.

“There’s two ways to look at this,” Marsh said. “You can say everything that is wrong with my business is because of this giant hole in the ground, or you can look internally and fix what you can. That’s what we did.

“When that first train drops off everybody at Yaletown station, it’s going to be a great thing for this area. Fortunately, I’m one of the lucky ones that’s been able to ride things out.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Province

As a Houstonian, I was amazed and angered at Randal O’Toole’s report for the Fraser Institute that promotes the insane idea Vancouver should model itself after Houston, Texas.

I grew up, live and commute in Houston and I can tell you that none of my co-workers enjoy their commute.

We have large, wide slabs of concrete freeway that cut up the city and it is still not getting us anywhere. Several friends take three freeways to get home and they still take two hours.

Toll roads won’t solve the problem. I pay almost $250 each month in tolls so I can avoid the other congested arteries and it still can take me 11/2 hours to get home. So what great city is O’Toole talking about?

Houston is most definitely unplanned. That’s how you can have oil refineries within a few miles of residences.

Houston residents are constantly fighting the “free market,” which believes adult video stores or bars should be literally next to homes, churches or schools.

The pollution and lack of planning have driven Houstonians to flee the city into distant suburbs. Gas is cheaper but if you’re driving farther, it comes out the same price.

This destroyed the tax base for Houston itself and prevented it from creating the kind of infrastructure a city needs to thrive.

Further, the distant suburban living prevented a cultural identity from forming for the city. Houston isn’t a city, it is a name attached to a collection of suburban centres which needed a central node to pass through or a name to apply to a sports team.

It has only been in the past four years after Houston finally started planning its community, including a new rail system, that we have begun to turn all that around.

We’re finally seeing people move back into the city. We’re seeing civic pride return, parks restored, and a tax base stable enough to actually fund its city.

Do people really want Vancouver to go the way of Houston, when Houston is trying to go the way of Vancouver?

Desh Sriva, Katy, Texas

 

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

Round-the-clock system to take effect two years after attendant’s death

Gillian Shaw
Sun

Starting Feb. 1, anyone buying fuel at a service station in B. C. will have to prepay.

The regulation comes two years after the day gas station attendant Grant De Patie, who was dragged to his death in 2005 when he tried to stop a motorist who hadn’t paid, would have celebrated his 27th birthday.

In announcing the new regulation this week, Labour and Citizens’ Services Minister Olga Ilich said it will help protect employees who work late at night.

“Government’s priority is to protect all workers in British Columbia,” Ilich said at the announcement.

“We want to make sure that people return home safely after a day’s work.”

Prepayment will be mandatory at service stations across B.C. 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Ilich thanked Grant’s parents, Doug and Corinne De Patie, and his grandparents, Chet and Florence Crellin, for their work in promoting improved safety measures for B.C. workers.

“Minister Ilich has been a real champion for this cause, and has kept up the momentum towards these changes during the past year,” Doug De Patie said in the release. “We are pleased and proud that the government has followed through with these new rules that will mean more safety for workers who face the kind of risks that Grant did.”

The mandatory prepayment system, which becomes the second component of what has been dubbed ‘Grant’s Law’, follows on earlier WorkSafeBC requirements for orientation and training for new workers, including service station attendants.

Teenager Darnell Darcy Platt pleaded guilty to manslaughter in De Patie’s death and was sentenced to nine years imprisonment, with that sentence reduced to seven years by the B.C. Court of Appeal.

Pratt had taken $12 worth of gas from the Maple Ridge Esso where De Patie worked when he struck De Patie with his car and dragged him 7.5 kilometres, leaving him dead in the middle of the road.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Regulation brought in after death of Grant De Patie in gas and dash

Ian Austin
Province

Pay before you pump.

That’s the law in B.C. come February.

Yesterday, on what would have been gas station attendant Grant De Patie’s 27th birthday, WorkSafe B.C. announced that all fuel in B.C. must be prepaid.

Drivers will have the choice to prepay at the pump — already widely available with credit or gas cards — or pay a station attendant who will pre-load, say, $20 worth of gas that you pump into your car.

De Patie was dragged to his death in 2005 when he ran in front of a late-night motorist who filled up and fled.

Since that fateful night, De Patie’s family has dedicated countless hours determined to stop others from suffering Grant’s fate.

“I’m very happy about this,” said Labour Minister Olga Ilich.

“We have to give a lot of kudos to the family for continuing to work so tirelessly on this to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Along with the pre-paid fuel regulation comes a requirement for all late-night retail outlets that workers have a partner or be locked safely away from the public.

The regulation states that all workers at all retail stores open from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. must have a co-worker or be protected either by a locked door or a barrier.

“While we will live the rest of our lives with only Grant’s memory, our family is proud that, thanks to Grant, other young workers will be safer on the job,” said Doug De Patie, Grant’s father, who worked tirelessly to ensure that rules would be introduced to prevent similar deaths.

Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, called the new regulations the best in North America.

“Despite suffering such personal tragedy, the De Patie and [grandparent] Crellin families worked hard to ensure that no other worker would have to face the same risk their son and grandson did,” said Sinclair.

“Without their support, this regulation would not be here today.”

Darnell Pratt was 16 when he struck De Patie at the Maple Ridge Esso station in March 2005.

Pratt drove off, dragging De Patie 71/2 kilometres.

Pratt pleaded guilty to manslaughter and in May 2006 was sentenced as an adult to nine years minus credit for time served, for a total of seven years and three months.

The B.C. Court of Appeal cut the nine-year sentence to seven years.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

Alan Ferguson
Province

How refreshing it is, in a world leaden with conformity, to hear the outspoken views of someone who dares to be different. Such a one is Randal O’Toole, a U.S. academic and author of a controversial paper published this week by the Fraser Institute.

If there’s an ounce of truth to what he says, the good people of the Lower Mainland have been the victims of a gigantic fraud over the past several decades.

According to O’Toole, they have been the subjects of a bizarre experiment in social engineering perpetrated by blinkered city planners careless of the outcome of their tinkering.

Here’s a sample from O’Toole’s paper that will give you an idea of where he’s coming from.

Metro Vancouver planners, he says, “want to control where people live, the kind of housing they live in, where they work and how they get to work.”

How could this happen?

Well, the planners decided years ago that they would control “sprawl” by putting strict limits on land developed for housing.

The result: A land shortage leading to the highest home prices in Canada.

The planners also wanted people living in multi-family, high-density cores convenient to public transit.

The result: Higher street crime and an intolerable strain on infrastructure.

(Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan’s trademarked “eco-density” initiative, which would dramatically increase the population in some city neighbourhoods, would no doubt be viewed by O’Toole as the ultimate folly.)

On the work front, he accuses the planners of insisting on a “balance” between people and jobs in designated cities, the aim being to make commuter travel by car unnecessary.

And, to further discourage travel by automobile, the planners deliberately refuse to build roads, hoping drivers will get so tired of congestion they will dump their vehicles.

All these policies have failed miserably, and at great cost, writes O’Toole, since people in the end decide what’s best for them.

And people prefer to drive their cars to work; they want a home with a yard for the kids instead of a box in the sky; and they don’t want to live on top of their workplace.

It should not surprise you to learn that O’Toole’s solution to our woes is not to change the way we plan, but to abandon planning altogether.

Open up the “green zone” for housing, he says, and throw in some of the Agricultural Land Reserve, to end an “artificial land shortage.” Home prices would again be affordable for middle- and lower-income families.

Build a slew of new roads — but put in electronic tolls so that drivers can get where they’re going in a hurry, while paying for the privilege.

And instead of making the car a public enemy, the emphasis should be on advanced technology to make vehicles more efficient and less polluting.

SkyTrain’s an expensive luxury, says O’Toole. Lots more buses are the answer.

Food for thought, isn’t it?

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

Doug Ward
Sun

VANCOUVER – General Electric will spend $1.6 million over the next three years to restore the outdoor ice rink at Robson Square in time for the 2010 Olympics, Premier Gordon Campbell said Monday.

In return, the Robson Square facility will be called GE Ice Plaza or, when the ice surface is not in use, GE Plaza.

The sponsoring agreement with the multinational American conglomerate means the ice rink at Robson Square should be back in operation by the winter of 2008.

Campbell said GE Plaza should become a central location for public celebration during the 2010 Games.

“This is the centre of the city in so many ways,” Campbell told reporters, “and to be able to create a real centre of attraction for all of the public will be a great thing for 2010.”

GE also sponsored the GE Ice Plaza in Torino, host of the 2006 Winter Games.

“I hope that this plaza, whether it’s the GE Ice Rink or the GE Plaza, is a real centre of activity and excitement for everyone” Campbell said.

He said the province, which will continue to own Robson Square, will complement efforts by the City of Vancouver and the federal government to provide public spaces during the 2010 Olympic period.

The city plans to stage two public gathering places on the former bus depot site on Beatty Street and in David Lam Park on the north side of False Creek.

There will be nightly celebrations, including live music.

GE chief marketing officer Dan Henson said the return of the ice rink “is a great opportunity to bring people together for fitness, and to share the excitement of the Olympic Games.”

The Robson Square ice rink first opened in 1982 but closed in November 2000 because of maintenance problems with the ice.

The GE announcement is just the latest example of corporate branding of public facilities in B.C. GM Place is probably the best-known example of the phenomenon here.

The GE brand presence at Robson Square will expire in 2010 unless the corporate giant renews its sponsoring agreement.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Warnings being issued that global 3Q results will suffer

Province

The global credit crunch engulfed banks on both sides of the Atlantic yesterday, as some of the financial sector’s biggest names warned of a negative impact on their third-quarter results.

The biggest news came from the world’s largest wealth manager, Zurich-based UBS AG, which said it would write down $3.4 billion US and post a net loss in the vicinity of $700 million for its third quarter.

The bank attributed the expected loss to deteriorating conditions in the U.S. subprime residential mortgage market.

The bank also said its chief executive, Marcel Rohner, would move to chief executive of its investment banking arm, amid a wider re-organization of senior management and several thousand layoffs.

Credit Suisse, another Swiss bank, said results in its investment-banking and asset-management divisions have been “adversely impacted” by recent turmoil in global debt markets, but that it still expects its third-quarter results to be in the black.

Meanwhile, shares in besieged British lender Northern Rock tumbled up to 17 per cent in yesterday’s trading on fresh fear the bank is now a takeover target and that a buyer would immediately put the bank into administration, leaving shareholders with nothing.

The largest bank in the United States, Citigroup Inc., said that “dislocations in the mortgage-backed securities and credit markets, and deterioration in the consumer credit environment” would hurt its third-quarter results.

Citigroup said it would likely report a decline in net income of around 60 per cent from its third quarter a year ago.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

Skating to start in winter ’08, says premier

Damian Inwood
Province

Vancouver residents who took their first, faltering steps on skates at Robson Square will once again be able to tie on the blades at the downtown rink, starting next year.

Premier Gordon Campbell said yesterday that, thanks to a $1.6-million sponsorship deal with U.S. consumer conglomerate GE, the plaza-level rink will be “reinvigorated and revitalized” as a major gathering place in time for the 2010 Olympics.

“I hope this will be the start of what will be a pretty exciting time for Robson Square,” said Campbell. “This is the centre of the city in so many ways and to be able to create a real centre of attraction for all the public will be a great thing for 2010.”

in the winter of 2008. It was popular with thousands of children between 1982 and 2000.

When it was closed, as a cost-cutting measure, savings were estimated at $50,000 a year.

In 2004, an attempt by Vancouver Coun. Tim Stevenson to get the rink reopened was put on ice.

At that time, the cost of replacing underground pipes was tagged at a cool $750,000.

Since it closed, the rink’s concrete base has been used “for dance events and hula-hoop demonstrations,” said Campbell.

He said the latest in green technology will be used, including low-voltage lighting and recycled flooring, furniture and fixture materials. Hydrogen fuel-cell technology may be used to provide demonstration power.

During the 2010 Olympics, the rink will be outside a media centre being set up for thousands of unaccredited journalists covering the Games.

GE, a major Olympics sponsor, is giving $1.6 million over three years for the naming rights for the rink. During the winter it will be known as the GE Ice Plaza and in summer simply as GE Plaza.

GE also sponsored the GE Ice Plaza in Turin‘s Piazza Solferino during the 2006 Winter Games.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

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Malcolm Parry
Sun

IN FOR THE LONGER HAUL: You’d think Brian Scudamore’s 1-800-GOT-JUNK? firm would be literally cleaning up during the Vancouver city-workers’ strike.

Not so, said San Francisco-born, North Vancouver-raised Scudamore, 37, even though the outfit he founded in 1989 is expected to haul away trash to the tune of $135 million in 2007 — up many truckloads from last year’s $106 million.

Business in Vancouver is actually down 10 to 15 per cent, he said, “because the strike “leaves us nowhere to take stuff.”

That’s no handicap, however, in “another 333 markets that aren’t on strike.”

He was talking partially about the remainder of Canada, where 1-800-GOT-JUNK? franchises “are completely sold out.” But the firm’s growth now will be in the U.S. and Australia, where Scudamore said he’ll sign 80 franchise agreements this year, thereby tripling those in Australia to 12. Franchisees pay $16,000 for the first 62,500 of population served, and $8,000 for added increments.

That doesn’t include first franchisee Paul Guy, the firm’s former operations director, who got Toronto for free in 1999 and now sets company-wide records in the range of $7 million annually. The second franchise district, Edmonton, “will do almost a million this year,” Scudamore said.

His own target has three more zeroes on it. And he’s actively seeking a president-COO “to take us from $130 million to a billion . . . by the end of 2012.”

With North America counting for $700 million and Australia $50 million of that, Scudamore and the new president will have to find $250 million globally. Scudamore said the firm will “absolutely” return to Britain within 18 months. A trial operation in Birmingham foundered this year, not least because there’s no 1-800 designation, and British telephone numbering wouldn’t accommodate an easily amended title.

Germany and France will follow, with China, Japan and other Asian countries beyond that.

Still, there is no plan to move 240 headquarters staff — and especially a 100-agent call centre — from the three-floor West Hastings Street premises they moved into a year ago. “I hope and believe we can find all the languages in Vancouver and keep it here,” Scudamore said.

As for an 1-800-GOT-JUNK? mascot, it’s no junk-yard dog. Instead, Scudamore has named Shiba Inu pup Grizzly the firm’s director of greetings, and pays him in dog food. He’ll need more than that, though, for a president-COO “who’s been there and done it before — taken a hyper-growth company and made it bigger.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007