Posts from — April 2009

Yesterday’s council vote to deny The Odyssey, one of Vancouver’s most important gay nightclubs, the right to relocate to 911 Denman St., was much closer than the 10-1 vote implies. (See the report at item 1 here.)

With the club’s lease at its Howe St. location due to terminate April 30, there is almost no time for the owners to find suitable new premises, although council directed staff to make every effort to do so. With the door closed on the new site on Denman, it could be the end of The Odyssey.

As several councillors noted, this was one of the most balanced and difficult debates this council has yet experienced, with passionate, legitimate and overwhelmingly respectful presentations on both sides.

During debate on the motion to reject, Councillor Suzanne Anton said she agreed with my analysis but arrived at an opposite conclusion, a sign of the difficult choice councillors faced. (She ultimately was the sole supporter of the proposed move.)

I concede that I started the hearing leaning to approval as well, but found myself increasingly swayed by the representations of Denman neighbours, who were overwhelmingly opposed. Supporters were overwhelmingly from outside the neighbourhood. Council heard more than 40 speakers, including a memorable juxtaposition of drag queen Joan E. (for the Odyssey) with a prim, tartan-clad Scots grannie (against).

It was a collision of  two communities. On the one hand, council heard from The Odyssey’s patrons, the loyal supporters of a business that has operated successfully for more than 20 years with an exemplary record of good management and community relations. On the other hand, we heard from dozens of residents of the Denman community, including many gay men who themselves were Odyssey patrons, but didn’t believe the club was a good fit in the more residential setting of the 900-block of Denman.

Given the strong representations by gay men on both sides, the issue was more about the suitability of the location for a night club than it was about an institution in the gay community.

Here the Odyssey took a blow from the Vancouver Police Dept., which sang the praises of the club’s management, but predicted serious, continuing conflict with the community at the new location, on the second floor of a former movie theatre beside dense residential development. It was clear the Odyssey needed six-day a week operation with late, late hours to meet its patrons’ expectations, a recipe for continued friction with neighbours.

Why must The Odyssey move? The city owns the current location and is tearing the building down to create supported housing, a desperately-needed addition to community services. The fate of the site was sealed about a year ago as funding became available.

A simple night club approval? Not really. Just Google “gay village decline” and you’ll see that many cities are facing conflict over the future of their gay communities.

The number of gay nightclubs in our town is declining steadily. There are virtually no suitable locations available within the gay-friendly and safe atmosphere of the Davie Village. Even elsewhere in the downtown core, an area the Odyssey management believes is less suitable, there is a shortage of new club locations. Let’s hope this Odyssey is not over.

[NOTE: a few days after this was posted, the BC Liberals promised to fund U-Pass if re-elected.]

In the six long years since Vancouver’s post-secondary students began their campaign for a single universal pass across the region, Translink has resisted their demand with the claim that it couldn’t afford the cost.

Each student body that joined the program had to pay its own way, with a combination of mandatory student fees and higher ridership, the “revenue neutral” approach that saw UBC students ride for $22 a month, Langara students for $37 and those without the program even more.

As I pointed out last fall, the revenue neutral system means a Vancouver Community College student will pay three times as much as a UBC or SFU student for the same transit access. That adds up to $400 over an eight-month term, a huge sum for students struggling pay tuition and rent.

Of course, the cost of U-Pass expansion would be in the millions of dollars, but the region would benefit by increased transit ridership and students would pay a significant share of the cost with their fees.

Fed up with the stonewalling, students at Emily Carr and Vancouver Community College have filed a complaint with the BC Ombudsman, demanding a review of the patently unfair program. On March 31, they presented Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon with 2,500 cards signed by students seeking a single pass. On April 10, they presented thousands more to Mayor Gregor Robertson as City Council unanimously approved a motion (item 4 here) endorsing their cause.

Just hours before, Premier Gordon Campbell, Falcon and Conservative MP Russ Hiebert announced a $100 million investment in Translink designed to buy turnstiles for the entire system. Ottawa will provide $40 million, Victoria $30 million and Translink the remainder. Translink’s money will go to Smartcard technology, a useful innovation that should help the system.

The turnstiles, however, are a waste, an investment Translink has refused to make because the money recovered in fare evasion will not come close to covering the cost of the new equipment. No matter — Minister Falcon wants them, so he’s paying the shot.

For a fraction of the cost, the Premier and Minister Falcon could have scored a massive political win on the eve of the election by extending U-Pass to all post-secondary students. (BC Transit already provides a single pass for all post-secondary students in Victoria for $60 a semester.) Instead, they have achieved the inconceivable: a $100 million investment in public transit that will not produce one second of additional service.

So why the rush to spend? My guess is the imminent Labour Day opening of the Canada Line. All the payments for this public-private partnership are based on ridership numbers. Without solid numbers, the lawyers will have nothing to argue about.

Encouraging news that BC’s construction industry is picking up the pace after some serious declines is mirrored in the latest Vancouver building permit report, which shows the number of dwelling units built in February up to 270, compared to 190 last year. Value of Vancouver construction remains lower, of course, and the cumulative figures remain far off last year’s.

A cloud of gulls was visible from City Hall this morning wheeling around the east end of False Creek, all feasting, no doubt, on last week’s surprise herring spawn.

Patrick Walshe, of the Green Shores program, writes that John Harper, of the firm’s technical team, happened on the spawn while testing the Green Shores Coastal Development Rating System. Green Shores promotes the sustainable use of coastal ecosystems, and they must be on to something. I’ve lived about a kilometre west of the spawn on the south central shore of False Creek, for more than 20 years and I know there’s never been a herring spawn in that time.

Today in the Vancouver Sun, this cautionary letter from David Ellis contrasting the overall decline in herring stocks with Vancouver’s spot of good news.