Last night the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup final. An estimated 100,000 people were in the downtown core to take part in festivities -- a number that far surpasses those that flooded the city in 1994. If you weren't a resident of Vancouver that fateful night 17 years ago then you have absolutely no frame of reference regarding the impact it had on the people of the city, most of whom had nothing to do with the riot, and the utter embarrassment that it caused. Broadcast live to the continent on CNN, scenes of morons smashing windows, looting stores, and confronting police were shown repeatedly for days afterwards.
I walked up Robson from Denman the next morning and it looked like a running gun battle had taken place sans the buildings being branded by bullet scars. It was an absolute disgrace.
The night before, I'd made my way down Robson, and then through the backstreets in the West End, just before all hell broke loose up at the intersection at Thurlow. Arriving home, I turned on the television and found myself watching events unfold mere blocks from my apartment. When the tear gas was fired, clouds of it rolled west down the slope forcing many of us to close our windows.
While what unfolded that night disgraced the city, and revealed it to be far more a backwater fishing village that a world-class city, what is currently transpiring on the streets of Vancouver is set to do far more damage to the city's reputation. And that's the hard, cold, truth of it, no matter how cosmopolitan you believe this city to now be. If the Olympics succeeded in charming the pants off the world, that warm, fuzzy feeling has now been decimated.
I'm in no mood to start slicing pies. Whether you like it or not, what's happening right now will be viewed as a representation of the city as a whole -- not merely a handful of people. And even then, it's not just a handful of people.
Of course, alcohol has a great deal to do with it. When you mix booze with idiocy and an excuse to parade incivility what do you honestly expect, a spontaneous love-in?
Cars have been set on fire -- on the streets and in parking garages. Police cars have been flipped and torched. Stores have been looted and set on fire. Enough city trash bins have been set ablaze that if one didn't know better they'd think they were in a Hoover-Ville.
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Beyond those directly responsible for causing damage, there's throngs of bystanders milling around like idiots filming it all on their digital phones -- like it'll be some sort of keepsake. In the midst of it all were members of the Vancouver Police and Fire Departments who were outnumbered and, from what I saw, doing their best to keep their cool. That could change, mind you, and if it does I'm not sure that I'd really blame them.
There is a vast difference between gathering in such numbers to protest something deemed politically unacceptable and burning cars after the loss of a hockey game. To put it in the clearest context possible, if the people of Egypt were able to gather in much larger numbers and force the Mubarak regime out of power without acting like idiots, then what does that say about a city in the land of milk and honey in which people riot because of the loss of a sporting event? The Egyptians faced persecution for their actions, not to mention uncertainty as to whether the movement would succeed. That's bravery, and something to be applauded. And yet, here we are on the other side of the world acting like buffoons, lighting police cars on fire and causing such distention that emergency service vehicles can't even access the downtown core to deal with people that have sustained injuries.
What do you want me to say? That it doesn't represent the city as a whole because everyone from the downtown core to the Wally exchange wasn't directly involved? That's a nice thought, though wondrously short sighted. What do you think the national media is saying? Or, for that matter, foreign media? That it was just a small group of rabble-rousers? Or that, once again, Vancouver rioted after a Stanley Cup loss as if it's tradition.
The last thing I care to hear is some 20-something that's lived downtown for four months lecture me on the "realities of the city." I lived in the downtown core for almost two decades, I'm quite familiar with it -- and unlike some naïve scenester that can't find their own ass with two hands and flashlight most of the time, I know full well what tonight's unrest will ultimately cost taxpayers. You can think what you will about Greater Vancouver, but its core mentality hasn't changed all that much. No amount of trendy eateries, hip night spots, and upscale retailers is going to change the fact that if you give most of the idiots around here enough rope, they'll hang themselves and think it cool.
Matthew Good is a Canadian musician, author, and human rights activist. This article was first published in his blog.
All the hand wringing by people ashamed, disgraced, disappointed and generally mortified that the happy shiny image of Vancouver has been soiled by - take your pick - hooligans, anarchists, angry young men, morons, fake canuck fans, fake Vancouverites. I want people to be ashamed, disgraced, disappointed and generally mortified that we have the highest child poverty rate in the country and unspeakable numbers of missing and murdered women and the poorest postal code in the country ...... Seriously, Vancouver has no reputation to lose and better reasons to riot.
And for those twisted up about having drunk young men wreak havoc in 'your town', come down to the Downtown Eastside on any weekend (ditto Cyprus and other places where Canadian soliers stationed in Afghanistan take R+R). We know what its like to live in a city-sanctioned entertainment zone where it's a frat party every flippin' weekend. Show up, get drunk, do what you don't do anywhere else because, hey, it's 'the skids' and the cops do nothing because they want 'social mix' and they're too busy busting and harassing the locals. Five days before this riot, after the big UFC event at Rogers, a group of men left the London Pub - one of the newest sports bars in the DTES catering to moneyed non-resident drinkers - and beat the shit out of a 56 year old man, who remains in critical condition in the hospital. Not a peep in the media and no moral outrage by the good people of Vancouver.
24 hours after the riot and the façade of social peace is once again firmly in place...and the fire next time? I'm hoping it counts for something.
Why do you and other commentators reference alcohol as being the fuel to this fire? Most cities around the world, such as Melbourne - my home, have a huge sporting culture with a heavy emphasis on social drinking.
Yet no riots......
This comes down to a policing issue. For some reason people in Van find it acceptable that they can walk into the city with a backpack filled with fuel, items to smash things with etc without any fear of getting caught. And clearly it works, look at '94, look at that mob during the Olympics.
The fact is there was no plan in place in major streets to contain and control the crowds, allowing an adequate number of police to maintain order. There was a vast shortage of police. And people seemed to mill about at will once the s*** hit the fan. The crowd should have been dispersed out of the city, through designated streets patrolled by large numbers of police.
How is it possible that a large crowd can be in front of Sears and London Drugs smashing windows and looting for reportedly 2 hours (45 mins at Sears), without a large police presence beating them to a pulp? Police should have been there in a second, cuffing these hooligans with zip locks and laying them on the street until order was maintained. Why stand there with riot shields for an hour looking at them?
Policing in Vancouver is the problem. People think they can get away with murder, and clearly they do.