Category Archives: Vancouver

some Mount Pleasantries

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Mount Pleasant Community CentreFrom the Archive:  
  Saturday, September 28, 2002

Would you think there could be a place of such hubris as to call itself “Mount Pleasant” even if it is not a mountain at all but just a big enough hill to be really intimidating to cyclists and rollerbladers and maybe the odd wheezy geezer, though great fun to roll down, though it is devoutly to be wished that they repair the damn cracks in the road before I end up eating pavement? I think not. Where were we? Oh yes.

Mount Pleasant is another in this blog’s cast of characters; the neighborhoods have names, but the neighbors don’t. Actually, for a Vancouver neighborhood it’s really pretty neighborly and low-key. The Gucci quotient there is quite low, and the one and only time a Ferrari was parked outside the Starbucks it turned out to belong to Barry Neidermier, a skank who was making a living off smuggled cigarettes and smuggled 14-year-olds. One of the teenaged whores refused to testify until the cops went to her pad and rescued her teddy bear. No lie.

But most of the people around there are from the deeper end Dysfunction Junction shopsof the gene pool. Mount Pleasant runs south along Main from Dysfunction Junction at Broadway right up to the peak of the Mount itself, which up around King Ed, in Queen E Park. Broadway is actually Ninth avenue and King Ed is twenty-fifth, but nobody calls them that; it would be like calling John Wayne “Marion.” It’s a nice, working-class place with neat little old houses, maybe in need of a coat of paint or two, and big, rambling Victorians with truly elaborate gardens and lowrise apartment buildings full of Filipino immigrants and poor families who all gather on the patio at the cocktail hour for a little ballroom dancing. It’s quite a sight, I tell you; looks like a really, really casual wedding every single night. Jeans and sweats are good enough for most, and some of the youngest have been known to waltz in Speedos, at least when the sprinkler is going on the lawn. The middle-agers are the best dancers, but the expression on their faces makes them look like radio-controlled evil clones or something; lighten up people!

The centre of this little universe is not the Community Centre, though it’s lovely. It’s not the general store, there are too many. It’s not even the yoga studio. It’s the Starbucks.

But wait, you say, Starbucks is a synthesized, mass-produced global fast-food organization. Sure, you’re right, sometimes it is.

But sometimes it isn’t.

Sometimes it’s something else completely.

Mount Pleasant hippie benchThey say if you stand at the door of the Ritz-Carleton long enough you will see everyone on earth pass by. Well I say if you sit at an outside table at the Mount Pleasant Starbucks long enough you will see everyone in the neighborhood at least once, and probably at least one person you haven’t seen in twenty years, no matter where you’re from. It is the centre of the cosmos, at least on a very microcosmetic scale. There I learned all about how Pugs aren’t the snotty little wretches they seem to be; a woman tied her tiny FooFoo to one of the tables and the little critter was so game and friendly that it dragged the table thirty feet around the corner so it could say hi to everyone. Remember, this thing is the size of an ankle boot.

Once, I was there with my sister from back east; doesn’t matter where, it’s all “back east.” Could be Paris, could be Plum Hollow, it’s all just “back east.”

So there we were, so of course we went to the Starbucks. They hadn’t landed back east yet, so it was a new experience for her. We got in line behind a couple of cycle cops, also an unfamiliar sight to her eastern eyes.

“No doughnuts? What’s up with that?” she asked, incredulous. I believe in Ontario you aren’t allowed to sell coffee unless you sell doughnuts as well. I think you get three years.

The cop ahead of us reached the head of the line. He was still wearing his helmet, along with the military-geek shirt and the spandex shorts they wear. He asked the barista, “Is that bran muffin low-fat?”

No, it was not.

“Okay, then I’ll have a multigrain bagel, dry, and a tall non-fat latte.”

My sister turned to me and asked, “What the hell kind of cop is that?”

Victorian Houses in Mount Pleasant

I walked in one day, having the kind of day where everything seems to be going my way for no reason at all, which is one of my favorite kind of days. I think I was going to get some coffee, though come to think of it there may have been snacking somewhere on the agenda, but just in a really casual sort of way. I walked in. I listened. Oh, oh, it’s one of my favorite songs! I turned to the barista and asked, “Steve! Is this the Committments tape?”

Steve, a musician when not baristicating, gave me a look of unutterable scorn, the kind of look a pediatrician would shoot Goebbels, and he said:

It’s ARETHA!

I so white.

Another low-income building threatened with closure

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Pivot Photograph 

Vancouver – The relentless assault on low-income housing in Vancouver continues in August as the American Hotel, a 37-unit low-income residential hotel on Main Street in Vancouver issued illegal eviction notices to all of its tenants demanding that they leave by September 30, 2006.

“This is beginning to look more and more like Expo 86,” said David Eby, lawyer for Pivot Legal Society. “The eviction notices are illegal, but the process for appeals under the Residential Tenancy Act is so difficult that most tenants will probably get kicked out nevertheless.” 

The reason given by the American Hotel on the eviction notices for evicting all the tenants is that renovations they are planning cannot occur with tenants in the building.  However, no City permits have been obtained, a requirement before evicting a tenant to make renovations under the Residential Tenancy Act.  In addition, the forms used were invalid.  When the representative of the American Hotel was advised of this fact, he told lawyer David Eby: “I don’t care.  I’m going to change the locks at the end of September anyway.  If you want to help, get some money together to pay rent for these tenants to go somewhere else.”

Under the Residential Tenancy Act, a tenant who wishes to appeal an illegal eviction notice must go to Burnaby to obtain an arbitration decision, a process which can take up to 6 weeks.  If the landlord ignores the ruling and changes the locks anyway, the tenant must apply to Supreme Court for an enforcement order.  This entire process can take up to two months, is complicated, involving multiple court appearances and multiple trips to the residential tenancy office – an almost insurmountable challenge for many low-income tenants. 

“The temptation for owners of SRO hotels to find ways to evict their tenants and make a quick dollar is only going to increase as the Olympics approaches,” said Eby.  “If the City of Vancouver and the Province of BC do not begin to make good on their commitment to protect low-income housing, the world will arrive on our doorstep in 2010 to witness a major homelessness crisis.”

The impending closure of the American Hotel (37 units) by the owners of that building follows the slow-motion closure of the Lucky Lodge (61 tenants as of July, 2006) by the City and the Province where 9 units are now vacant due to welfare’s new policy to refuse to issue rents to prospective tenants of that building. These closures in progress follow the dramatic closures of the Burns Block hotel (18 units) and the Pender Hotel (36 units) in March, 2006, and the closure of the Marble Arch hotel (148 units) and St. Helen’s hotel (100 units) to low income tenants through renovations and rent increases.

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Further Comment:     David Eby (778) 865-7997 – Pivot Legal Society

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The 2010 Inner-City Inclusivity Commitment to protect low-income housing and ensure that people are not made homeless was part of the Vancouver Bid Book, the formal application to host the Olympic Games. 

To read the Inclusivity Commitment Statement, visit: http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/housing/sra/pdf/statement.pdf .

About Pivot Legal Society
Pivot’s mandate is to take a strategic approach to social change, using the law to address the root causes that undermine the quality of life of those most on the margins.   We believe that everyone, regardless of income, benefits from a healthy and inclusive community where values such opportunity, respect and equality are strongly rooted in the law. 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Pivot Newswire, just send a note with that subject line to newswireatpivotlegaldotorg.

poor signals

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From the Archive

Hello? Can you hear me?

A couple of men were shopping in Urban Fare, and there wasn’t anything I wanted so I eavesdropped, not shopped. The tall one in the sleek Calvin pullover and microfiber pants was saying that people have the most embarrasing conversations on cellphones.“Oh?” said his buddy, a shorter blond guy with a wiry, mountainbiker look.

“Yeah,” he said. “Imagine if you had the same conversation without the cellphone; either on a real phone or face-to-face. Would you say those things, or would you have a real talk? Nobody says anything requiring a scintilla of intelligence on a cellphone.”

“You mean nobody discusses the meaning of life and the big philosophical questions on a cell?”

“Yes, yes, that’s it exactly. They talk about, you know, do you want the broccoli or the peppers, ’cause the broccoli is on special…no, no, the peppers look good…but the broccoli looks good too…”

“But do you think those kind of people ever have meaningful discussions?”

“At all?”

“At all.”

“Nope.”

“Well, let me ask you: do you have a cellphone?”

There was a pause. They stared at each other. This was Yaletown, what were the odds, eh? The guy pulled a tiny flip-phone from his pocket and a sheepish expression from somewhere in his upbringing.

“And Do you have meaningful conversations?”

“Point taken.”

“Do you?”

“This is about as good as it gets.”

tow the thin blue line

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From the Archive
  Tuesday, October 01, 2002

If you’ve ever wanted to know what resigned dutifulness looks like (and it’s not something we see very often, you must admit) you would have liked to have been with me this afternoon. As I was passing the cop shop, just at the start of rush hour(s) I saw somebody getting towed. Now, no biggie, you think, that happens all the time, all over town. Three PM sharp they start picking up cars and too bad for the owners. Happens all the time. Sure, but to a cop?

Yes indeedy, there, on Cordova, right in front of the Police Station, was a big beefy cop of the wholesomely mustachioed variety, dutifully-resignedly watching his patrol car get towed. And ticketed. And he just stood there and took it; what else could he do? But his mustache was a couple of inches shorter by the time the towtruck driver drove away.

if

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if leaving town for a day is what it takes to get a good … um … day’s sleep, then I am going to have to start being nicer to my suburban friends. ’twas lovely not to wake up every time a garbage truck backed up.