Quote:
Originally Posted by jlousa
Went to the Chinatown festival and I haven't felt this disenchantment with its future since I moved into the area over a decade ago. The booths occupied just one side of the street on only a single block on Keefer between Columbia and Carrall. Even arguable if you could call that Chinatown but let's let that pass. There was no booth that actually related to Chinatown, had a bunch of municipal parties, BC hydro, td bank, genesis security *sigh*. Even the Chinese cultural centre couldnt bother to open their doors. The Sun-Yat Sen park has its gates closed on both Columbia and Pender, you need to sneak in via a small mandoor along Carrall. Wish the festival would've brought in Chinatown merchants and been held within its current footprint to have broightnmore traffic to them.
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I walked through the festival on Sunday, and was surprised how little was on offer. I wonder if it's an indication of a tipping point for Chinatown businesses? It was organized by the Chinatown BIA, so there should have been support from local businesses, but clearly there wasn't. The website promised there would be 24 food trucks. There were three.
Overall the vacancy is probably no higher than a couple of years ago, and a few more 'Chinese' businesses and restaurants have opened, but many others have closed. Some are struggling the same as many others in Vancouver - Tannis Ling opened Nancy Go Yaya on E Pender, and it seemed busy, but she has had to close it because she couldn't get staff.
Tim Hortons opened up but Starbucks closed down. Tin Lee has joined Ming Wo in closing, but there is a newly opened EV scooter store, and a vegan clothing boutique. The Chinese Storytelling Centre is good, and Foo Hung Curios adds a new Chinese store, but many more have closed. (That's not just a Vancouver thing - the best Chinese store in Portland's Pearl District couldn't survive there either). It's perhaps partly because the things they sold have gone mainstream - now there's Oomomo on Robson, and Yokoyaya on Granville and ABC in International Village, all Asian (nominally Japanese in some cases), all inexpensive. The rise of Dollarama and Dollar Tree also offers cheap 'stuff' that some of Chinatown's stores supplied.
The younger Asian owned businesses are often food-based, but they aren't necessarily specifically Chinese. Propaganda coffee, for example, or Kouign Café, or Mello Donuts are all great additions to the area - if they all survive. Virtuous Pie seems to do well, and the added Mila next door on Keefer, which even added a street patio instead of parking.
The heritage buildings are still there (and in some cases struggling to be maintained as the older demographic of Chinese age, and the younger ones seem less interested in Family Societies). The new museum replacing Bob Rennie's offices should help boost the heritage aspect of the area, but it's hard to see how there could be as many herb stores, or dried foods, or greengrocers in future as there are now, just as there aren't as many now as there were 10 or 20 years ago.
The artificial 'new business' immigration program seems to have finally been closed down. (The same store would 'reopen' every year or two, with a row of fancy flower displays along the sidewalk announcing the new owner. The new owners apparently didn't worry too much if they traded at a loss; after a while they could apply for citizenship, and sell the business). When they opened they'd offer a discount, and there could be lineups of people buying discounted dried prawns. That made Chinatown feel busy - even when it really wasn't. Now the line-ups are when there's a release of a new sneaker design at Livestock.
Until the BIA will get some good ideas to market the area, or a continuing stream of interesting new businesses, it's likely the area will struggle. There's a lot of retail space, and it would seem, only a limited demand. And obviously covid doesn't help.
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