Public Disorder & the Decline of Vancouver's Livability - Page 99

Vin · #**1961** Posted **Oct 25, 2022, 8:44 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Changing City

Swing and a miss again, champ. "Funding for BIAs comes from a special property tax. Each commercial property within the boundary is taxed in proportion to its total taxable value. This means that if a property owner owns 1% of the total taxable value, their share will be 1% of the BIA budget."

Disagree. If that 1%, 30% or 50% of funding does not have to be used for extra security expenditure due to lawlessness and DTES concerns, it could be used for other more uplifting investments. It is as simple as that.

Changing City · #**1962** Posted **Oct 25, 2022, 8:48 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vin

Disagree. If that 1%, 30% or 50% of funding does not have to be used for extra security expenditure due to lawlessness and DTES concerns, it could be used for other more uplifting investments. It is as simple as that.

That's not even close to what you said. "Sad thing is, this association will get even less funding when more businesses leave the area." It's not true.

jollyburger · #**1963** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 12:17 PM**

Quote:

Crime on B.C. streets: Lawlessness made worse by government policy not to remand repeat, violent offenders

Publishing date:Oct 25, 2022 • 6 hours ago • 4 minute read • Join the conversation
A sense of lawlessness on the streets of downtown Vancouver is being made worse by federal policy to avoid remanding repeat and violent offenders, a Conversations That Matter panel of experts heard on Tuesday night.

The panel on rising street crime, a Conversations Live event hosted by Stuart McNish, was held a week after municipal elections in which concern over random violence and street crime was a major issue, and the day Premier-in-waiting David Eby said that crime and public safety was one of the big issues in the province.

The six-person panel included JJ Bean founder John Neate, Doug LePard and Amanda Butler — co-authors of the recently released Repeat Offenders report for the B.C. government — Vancouver Police Department deputy chief Steve Rai, National Police Federation president Brian Sauve and Surrey Board of Trade president Anita Huberman. Veteran Vancouver Sun cime reporter Kim Bolan and columnist Dan Fumano were also part of the conversation.

Neate said that while he understood that many of the repeat offenders who have terrorized his staff have major mental health and housing problems, there was no accountability.

He said in one case a man walked into a JJ Bean coffee shop on Main Street and when he was told he could not use the toilet without being a customer, he defecated on the floor. This came after a store washroom was destroyed by a person who was not a customer.

“He said ‘you won’t let me use the washroom, well here you go, here’s a gift for you.’ It makes it an unpleasant place to work,” Neate said.

More serious incidents include cases of smashed windows and the same people coming in to JJ Bean stores in an attempt to steal or ask customers for money. His stores had been broken into three times over the past month.

Neate said he had been active in the downtown core since 1979 and his sense was that it had become “lawless.”

“There’s a real sense of impunity,” he said.

LePard said that in 2019 there were 15,000 people in B.C. prisons, while in 2022 that number had fallen to 9,000.

He said this was because judges wanted to keep people out of jail during COVID-19, while the federal government’s Bill C75 bail reform legislation was leading to more people being released on bail.

“Many retailers report people with no-go orders just coming back in over and over again. We see this sense of emboldenment, that I won’t be held in jail so I can do what I want,” LePard said,

“In other provinces remand has gone back to pre-pandemic levels. Are judges different here? Are Crown not asking for remand? Arrest and jail is not the solution, but it’s part of the solution.”

Bolan pointed out that people involved in more serious crimes than were occurring in the Downtown Eastside were also being released on bail. She said that policing still had to focus on gang crime, which is as tragic as anything happening on the Downtown Eastside, and linked because low-level gang members dealt drugs in the area and often attacked drug buyers.

Rai said that Vancouver was a safe city, but there was a perception of rampant crime that was leading to fear and people not wanting to come to downtown Vancouver.

“To get away from lawlessness we have to get back to core policing,” he said, adding that police were having to act as medical responders in many cases. He said there were cracks in all parts of the system around policing — from training, to dispatch to health care.

All participants agreed that policing was being made more difficult by the lack of adequate housing and health services for many of the repeat offenders.

Butler thought that Canada and B.C. needed to look at models of incarceration that focused on health. She said that a “low-secure” facility should be built — not like the 1960s asylum model — for people who have complex disorders and are involved with the criminal justice system.

“Prisons are not places of healing,” Butler said.

Sauve said that all levels of government needed to have a discussion about “what we want the police to do.”

Huberman said businesses in Surrey were tired of the politicization of policing in their city.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news...t-to-remand-repeat-and-violent-offenders

Vin · #**1964** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 7:56 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Changing City

That's not even close to what you said. "Sad thing is, this association will get even less funding when more businesses leave the area." It's not true.

I'm sure the phantom "business association" of the DTES gets lots of funding with virtually no businesses around.

Vin · #**1965** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 7:58 PM**

No one got murdered: so safe!

Quote:

Vancouver woman followed several blocks, forced to hide in store from stranger
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-scary-stranger-incident
“I think it’s alarming that this occurred within a week of being released from prison after being convicted of assault, and it’s documented that he has a history of mental health problems and violence,” she alleged.

Daily Hive was unable to confirm the identity of the suspect or the allegations that they were a repeat offender.

jollyburger · #**1966** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 8:10 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vin

No one got murdered: so safe!

He just needs housing.

GenWhy? · #**1967** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 8:45 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vin

I'm sure the phantom "business association" of the DTES gets lots of funding with virtually no businesses around.

Not to split hairs, but I think there are 4 or 5 BIAs in the DTES area.

Vin · #**1968** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 8:46 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jollyburger

He just needs housing.

And free designer drugs at tax-payer's expense. Give him anything he wants.

Vin · #**1969** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 8:55 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

Not to split hairs, but I think there are 4 or 5 BIAs in the DTES area.

The extremely crazy part of DTES area basically has one BIA: Hastings Crossings.
Even though Strathcona BIA covers part of the DTES, it is in a better neighbourhood, not to mention the port area, and extends a large way east.

Not surprisingly, you don't hear much from Hastings Crossings since they probably don't have many property or business owners supporting their cause, especially along East Hastings east of Victory Square (I'm pretty sure SROs or city services do not have to contribute to their funding). Or perhaps this BIA spend almost all their funding on security/clean up services due to the extreme lawlessness at the DTES that they simply have nothing for anything else? I don't know.

For an area almost the same size as Yaletown, the Hastings Crossing BIA only secures $206,000 compared to Yaletown BIA at $1,000,000.

It becomes even more laughable when you consider the fact that East Hastings used to be the primary shopping/commercial stretch for the entire city of Vancouver.

WarrenC12 · #**1970** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 9:00 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vin

For an area almost the same size as Yaletown, the Hastings Crossing BIA only secures $206,000 compared to Yaletown BIA at $1,000,000.

Did you read the funding mechanism as explained to you already?

Vin · #**1971** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 9:07 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Changing City

I'm not surprised you think compassion is faked - you seem to have a profound deficit in that department. You also seem to have details about the incident that I haven't seen published. Can you share a link?

Would a compassionate government lead to so many deaths and even increasing year-by-year, in the first place?

Quote:

169 overdose deaths recorded in B.C. in August, 8-month total nears record
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/169-overdose-death...ust-8-month-total-nears-record-1.6087866

Talk is cheap. They are the ones controlling the purse-strings and could've done more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Did you read the funding mechanism as explained to you already?

And? That doesn't change anything.

WarrenC12 · #**1972** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 9:10 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vin

Would a compassionate government lead to so many deaths and even increasing year-by-year, in the first place?

No they would be thrown in gulags!

GenWhy? · #**1973** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 9:57 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vin

It becomes even more laughable when you consider the fact that East Hastings used to be the primary shopping/commercial stretch for the entire city of Vancouver.

Pre or post 1935?

SeymourDrake · #**1974** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 10:02 PM**

I wouldn't be against private policing coming into the bad neighborhoods. Not the joke the the VPD have become roaming 8 units for all of downtown.

WarrenC12 · #**1975** Posted **Oct 26, 2022, 10:15 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeymourDrake

I wouldn't be against private policing coming into the bad neighborhoods. Not the joke the the VPD have become roaming 8 units for all of downtown.

LOL who's going to pay for that?

Conrad Yablonski · #**1976** Posted **Oct 29, 2022, 1:37 AM**

One tiny little piece of Good News-the tents in 'Cultural Harmony Grove' that stretch of scrub land next to the south pillars of the Burrard St bridge has been cleared of tents.

A few 'tenters' were flushed out by the land clearing for the new native run development next door and and started to put down roots but now they seem to have reconsidered their position.