Police officers block off the road at the scene of a police-involved shooting in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, on July 30, 2022.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
A store can tell the story of a city.
Dressew is a beloved, independent and unique fixture on the edge of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside: a two-storey explosion of fabric, sewing notions, patterns and Halloween costumes. The store has been around since 1961, and in its current location since 1981.
Over the weekend, Dressew posted on social media that it would be selling the building where the business resides. And that the shop’s future was uncertain. “We are heartbroken, angry, and just numb that it has come to this,” the posting read.
What, exactly, was “it”?
Many commenters – also heartbroken, and some angry – speculated that it must have something to do with the neighbourhood. Some wrote of loving the store but feeling uncomfortable or nervous visiting the area.
As the delightful emporium opened Tuesday morning, proprietor David McKie told me that the decision had, in fact, “very little” to do with its location. But if it does reopen elsewhere – and he hopes it can – it won’t be downtown.
“Many of you have called for the [City of Vancouver] to help or blamed them in part,” the Dressew account wrote in a follow-up social-media post. “They cannot help us. The vandalism, graffiti, crime and our neighbourhood falling apart around us are a reason we won’t relocate in downtown Vancouver, but not the reason we are closing.”
A “For Sale” sign is expected on the building in September. Mr. McKie didn’t want people to find out that way, thus the announcement. The response was both a lovefest for the store and a hate-fest for this part of Vancouver. It is unsurprising that people jumped to the conclusion that the decision was related to the neighbourhood, given its troubles.
Dressew is a few blocks west of Main Street and East Hastings Street, the infamous epicentre of the Downtown Eastside. The neighbourhood is where many homeless people live with complex issues – mental illness, addiction. There is open drug use; also, lowered speed limits, as residents may walk suddenly out onto the street; often, these days, bent over in contorted positions caused by drugs.
Some local business owners have said things have deteriorated even further over the past few years, with safety, vandalism and theft becoming serious concerns. Things got still worse during COVID-19. Post-lockdown, Dressew has kept its windows boarded up with a flowery mural. In 2022, Mr. McKie told the Vancouver Sun that the boards would stay up to prevent more broken glass.
He says the issues facing the Downtown Eastside are not limited to one neighbourhood or city – and he’s right. In Los Angeles, the owner of the famous Langer’s deli is considering closing in MacArthur Park, described by a local neighbourhood association official as being plagued with drugged people “walking around like zombies.”
In tonier Santa Monica, Calif., frustrated business owners hung a banner declaring the area unsafe and calling it an “outdoor mental asylum.” There was a famous case in Phoenix, where the owners of a sandwich shop shared their plight as a homeless encampment grew around them.
Businesses open and close. It’s the cycle of urban life. But what is being allowed to happen is deadly. Unregulated drug toxicity is the leading cause of death in B.C. for people aged 10 to 59, the B.C. Coroners Service says. Since April, 2016, more than 14,948 people in the province had died from this. (Of course, this problem persists not just in the Downtown Eastside.)
Forget scared shoppers; this is a life-and-death failure.
Dressew, which is still operating normally for now, is in a tricky spot. The vacant lot next to the building is fenced off, but filled with garbage. On the same block, the front window of a cannabis store has been penetrated by some sort of projectile. Across the street, the glass door of another fabric store has been fixed with duct tape. But around the same block, steps away, you can buy boots for almost $1,000 or a pair of jeans for $700.
How can a city where people can afford such riches also be a city that lets human beings live like this? People witness this daily and maybe feel bad for a moment on their way to pick up a flat white and perhaps a new purse.
There has to be a way to stitch together a solution that is humane and allows businesses to stay open and feel safe. If we want to make the neighbourhood a viable place for the next generation of beloved businesses to come and stay, we need to do more to provide safe spaces to assist people in need – which should be the main concern.