Downtown Eastside Restaurant Target Of Protestors

[Lancaster]

I know.

[Electro Rock]

<p>

Hence the "in their right mind" part

The problem is that their rationality is all wrong.  Being poor isn't a "right", it's an unfortunate circumstance.

The goal should be to lessen the impact of poverty, not enabling it by creating an environment for it.  But of course, these poverty pimps probably milk the system to their advantages, thus they want to keep things the way it is.

[Wetcoaster]

Excellent article from Pete McMartin of the Vancouver Sun on Save On Meats and the misguided and ignorant action of the so-called poverty activists.

On March 12, a man and a woman sat down for a meal at Save On Meats Diner.

This was before the childish theft of the restaurant’s sandwich board made the news, and before the stolen sandwich board made its hostage-like reappearance on an anarchist website. The manifestos of poverty activists about “gentrification” in the Downtown Eastside had yet to be uttered.

The man and woman had eaten at the diner before. He looked to be in his late 40s; she was in her 20s. She was blond, slim and, in the words of Save On Meats manager Jason Corbett, appeared to be “having a tough go of things.”

They ate quietly. While they were eating, the young woman asked her server for a pen and paper. When she and the man left, on the table was a letter. The server read it. Then, with tears in her eyes, she brought it to Corbett.

This is some of what the young woman wrote:

“To Save On Meets (sic)

“I would just like to express my gratitude for the way the staff at Save On Meets continually help people who are in need, without judgment or even hesitation ... I personally have been so greatful (sic) to all Save On Meets employees for being a place where I’m able to go on days when I’m almost ready to snap ... its usually on cold rainy days when I’m feeling unwell, have no way to get money, need desperately to eat and feeling very unloved and hopeless ...

“There is a very good vibe here that always cheers me up, that means the world to anyone down here who’s being treated like they don’t belong anywhere and feel so hopeless because there’s nowhere to go where they won’t be ridiculed ...

“I know there was honestly a time which my life was most likely going to have ended that day had I not walked up to the window at the front, broke and extremely hungry and feeling very hopeless and unwanted. My instinct was to keep walking as I passed the front window but when I saw the food, my empty stomach forced me to stop. I didn’t really think it would be a good experience for me to ask if there was a possibility of a free bite to eat ... my self respect couldn’t take being denied again ... but I wasn’t denied. To my surprise they were kind to me, talked to me like I was anybody else they’d serve and they gave me something to eat free. That 15 minutes restored my hope, and my will to live came back as I also got to dry off and curb my hunger!”

She signed it “Thank You — Melinda” and drew a heart beside her name.

Corbett read the letter and, as he wrote in an email to me, “welled up, too.”

“That’s when I took a picture of it and sent it to all the staff. I’m pretty sure it had the same effect on everyone.”

It’s important to know that I learned about the letter not from Corbett or from Mark Brand, the owner of Save-On-Meats, but from a server I know personally, and who had mentioned it to me in an earlier conversation. To get the letter, I had to phone Corbett at home, where he was sick in bed. He was surprised I would want it.

I wanted it so that I might bring another voice to the conversation. In the last couple of days, we have listened to poverty activists go on about the gentrification of the Downtown Eastside.

Save On Meats, undeservedly, has been a target in this. No business could be more community-minded. It tries to hire neighbourhood residents and the disabled, it runs a sandwich token program in which patrons can buy meals for those in need, it donates food and services to various agencies, including a food bank and a treatment centre for women.

Yet in a news story about gentrification, Sun city reporter Jeff Lee quoted Ivan Drury of the grandly-titled Carnegie Community Action Plan as seeing Save On Meats owner Brand “as doing ‘Dickensian charity work’ that (Drury) thinks is best left to government.”

“‘This Save On Meats scheme,’” Lee quoted Drury as saying, “‘is socially irresponsible because it is posing an alternative to taxing corporations and the rich … to provide social programs.’”

Aside from the fact that the form of enlightened philanthropy and community engagement Save-On-Meats practises could hardly be called Dickensian — has Drury read Dickens? — one wonders what evidence he has that suggests it could supplant traditional government involvement or, for that matter, the grad-school Marxism he envisions.

Subsidized social housing of all kinds in the Downtown Eastside hasn’t decreased in the last 20 years; it’s increased, and continues to do so. The neighbourhood is still the ravenous maw of tax dollars it always has been, and there are no signs of its appetite waning.

Is gentrification taking place? Without doubt — though in a neighbourhood as destitute as the Downtown Eastside, it would be fairer to call it urban renewal. Yet the city and provincial governments have worked to make that change as inclusive as possible, accommodating both the longtime residents and the inevitable change all neighbourhoods undergo.

In this, Save On Meats is undeniably a part of that change, and thank goodness. The neighbourhood is lucky to have it.

For one woman, at least, it was not Dickensian charity it dispensed, but dignity.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Pete+McMartin+Another+kind+meal+from+Save+Meats/8139098/story.html#ixzz2ONtEIyPG

[Gross-Misconduct]

I'm surprised Christy Clark isn't down there defending the business owners. It would make a great photo op for her.

It might look like grandstanding but that never stopped her before. Just look how she's now "talking tough" with the Feds over the Kits coast guard base closure. She's threatening to not allow the proposed oil pipelines unless they reopen the coast guard base. Of course she has no power to do this but Christy is always in campaign mode. So the facts aren't important to her.

[-DLC-]

Stick to the topic at hand please, GM.

[hockeyfan87]

Has anyone at city hall taken a stance on this recent ongoing disruption?

[Gross-Misconduct]

Stick to the topic at hand please, GM.

[Wetcoaster]

Has anyone at city hall taken a stance on this recent ongoing disruption?

[Common sense]

Has anyone at city hall taken a stance on this recent ongoing disruption?

[hockeyfan87]

Here is some Gregor-speak on the issue - fence sitting 101:

But who better to respond than Mayor Gregor Robertson. I caught up with him last week and asked what city council’s vision was for the Downtown Eastside.

“Vancouver is all about inclusion — people of all different backgrounds and cultures living together and getting along,” he said. “It’s tough when there’s big change. In the Downtown Eastside, we’re seeing more investment and social housing and improved [single-room-occupancy hotels], as well as more investment with new businesses like the PiDGin restaurant.”

And, he continued, there’re “challenges with that.”

Then he borrowed from the late Rodney King in saying “I’m hopeful people will get along.” He then reverted to Gregorese to complete his sentence: “and we strike a balance overall investing in a neighbourhood that didn’t see much investment for many years and, at the same time, accepting that they’re going to be people of all different stripes part of this neighbourhood, as there always have been.”

Robertson wouldn’t say if he would eat at PiDGin — “I haven’t seen the menu” — but supports the business in what he said was a competitive market for restaurants.

“I wish them all the best. It’s tough to see them having to deal — as a new business — with people harassing them and I’m hopeful that we get beyond this.”

http://blogs.canada....ntown-eastside/

[Wetcoaster]

Basically what I feared. A mayor of a major city in North America won't take a stance against crime and vandalism because it might affect him politically. Let's face it many people who supported him also support many of the social justice issues that these people claim to be destroying property for.

[Buggernut]

I really wonder who these protesters/hooligans are. Misguided people who truly care for the poor and destitute, or those fighting to protect their drug market?

[Buggernut]

Then when it became obvious there were a number serious issues such as health and safety (a death from a drug overdose), hard drug use, vandalism and crime; he became Mayor Dithers.

[Common sense]

I really wonder who these protesters/hooligans are. Misguided people who truly care for the poor and destitute, or those fighting to protect their drug market?

[Jaimito]

More social parasites at work.

[Lancaster]

Time and time again, it has been shown that the traditional form of protests (standing outside an establishment and yelling, or physically occupying a space like Occupy Vancouver) does not work - there's no effect from doing so other than creating a zone of hostility between the general public and the protesters.

Of course, this baffles me - why then, if this form of protest has failed, are people still doing it?

[Salmonberries]

Media needs to find something better to do with it's time.

[-DLC-]

I'm all for helping people in need, but I can't stand people that act as if they're owed something. Like society owes them something for them choosing a life of drugs.

To be clear, not saying all people in the downtown east side are like this, but there are lots of them that are. People that just don't wanna work, and get high all day while they collect money from other hard working taxpayers.

Exactly. While I do understand that people become displaced, the flip side is that changing the face of a neighbourhood also brings "change" period. To stay the same isn't going to help anyone...perhaps, instead of signs to protest, offer to do the signs on the sidewalk type advertising that you see pizza places do? As annoying and menail as this may seem, perhaps use a little creativity and in a wash your windshields at stop lights mentality, take the initiative and try to take positives out of change.

It's definitely a two sided coin though and it's important that voices are heard as people are slowly being priced out in many areas....we do need to keep a form of balance and keep some affordability in the picture. But, honestly, to have a bit of a facelift to improve the overall condition of an area?....what's to stand in the way of that? In the end, it can benefit at least some who should be looking to change their lives, not protest to stay the same.

[literaphile]

Remember Mayor Moonbeam's early and unqualified support for the Occupy Vancouver protesters:

“There are very legitimate concerns about equality, climate change and the state of the world that almost all of us share and we are willing to see what a global protest like this might precipitate.”

Then when it became obvious there were a number serious issues such as health and safety (a death from a drug overdose), hard drug use, vandalism and crime; he became Mayor Dithers.

Finally the VPD had enough and moved ahead on their own along with the Fire Department.

And there was the Mayor leading from behind.

[Wetcoaster]

Stop resorting to name-calling. It's really unbecoming for someone of your supposed stature.

Are you saying that politicians can't have evolving views on things? Did it occur to you that, perhaps, the Mayor supported the original idea behind the protest, but didn't support what it gradually changed into over time? When he shows concern for a protest becoming unsafe for both the protestors and the citizens, he becomes "Mayor Dithers"? Really?

If you don't have a valid argument to make, then just move on. No need to spout nonsense.