Meanwhile - the right wing trolls see my reasonable comments quite differently. Cue the anonymous hewers of outrage and drawers of rhetoric to spin up some angry misinformation...

It's hard to imagine a 27k ft retailer filling this space (see nearby empty Bay and Nordstroms), big footprint retail is challenged in this online age --but thoughtful interventions to support local-serving small business, third spaces other than streets, and curtail criminal activity would help.

This is in no way to diminish the very real challenges that London Drugs staff and stab proof vested security guards would have had to deal with on a daily basis here and as LD president admits are issues across BC - but the business model and consumer market at this location are part of the reality

This left an oversized shopping destination with an undersized consumer market expending scant resources and staff's wellbeing on safety and security. And the promise of redevelopment bringing new residents and new customers had all but evaporated.

By the time the tax exemption ended in 2020, the foreign investment-driven Vancouver real estate market had dried up, and COVID-19 catalyzed a broken system and challenges around mental health, substance use and acquired brain injury, exploding into a crisis of theft, violence and street disorder.

London Drugs in Woodwards opened as an outsized flagship sort of a store at 27,000 sq ft: almost as big at the Georgia and Granville location; twice the size of Olympic Village. The logic was likely that a super size London Drugs would attract more investment and development, as downtown moved east

When the new Woodward's mixed use development opened with housing and cultural spaces and retail it was heralded as a success, and anchor tenants like London Drugs were welcomed with a permissive ten year property tax exemption (thanks to sec 396A of the Vancouver Charter).

In 1998, a well-intentioned but disastrous decision by the council of the day shut down 'undesirable' businesses: 24h cafes, convenience stores, buy & sell markets and pawn shops. With nowhere indoors to go, more people ended up on the streets, and small businesses faced increasing street disorder

The site stayed vacant for several years, but for the Artropolis show and later Woodsquat occupation. Planners, pundits, and small businesses alike recognized the Woodwards Block served as a bulwark to the chaos of DTES drifting west. Activists recognized that any redevelopment needed social justice

In 1993, when Woodward's closed I was owner/operator of a print shop on that same block at 159 West Hastings. The impacts of the department store's demise were immediate and profound: foot traffic dropped off, street disorder rose and many small businesses on that same block folded within the year.

The beautiful game, used as a cover for deportation and breaking up families, while FIFA strokes Trump's ego with some symbolic prize. Please let's do something meaningfully symbolic and stand for Sanctuary, and Access without Fear in Vancouver's FIFA plan

www.hrw.org/news/2025/12...

I posted details above - but I think recognizing the damage these cuts will inflict and the value these volunteer committees bring to our city is helpful

If you share concerns about eliminating the public advisory committees, you can sign up to speak to it at Dec 9 Council, its Report #1 on the agenda.
Link to report and details to sign up:
council.vancouver.ca/20251209/reg...

❌2SLGBTQ+
❌Arts and Culture
❌Children, Youth and Families
❌Older Persons and Elders
❌Persons with Disabilities
❌Racial and Ethno-Cultural Equity
❌Renters
❌Transportation Advisory
❌Food Policy Council
❌Women’s Advisory

#zeromeanszero

Also. Admittedly, song was in the context of the budget, the speakers opposed to it, and a council week that at times has felt like a bit of a (metaphoric) street fight, so for me, from the trenches it was the perfect motivator 🎯

Yes, Paul Weller et al, The Jam "In the City" was Quinn's win for the wakeup