Vision Vancouver is saying no to the pleadings of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) and their request for City funding of the Downtown Ambassadors Program. For those of you who live outside Vancouver, these 'Ambassadors' are little more than glorified security guards in snappy red outfits. From having seen them in action on a number of occasions, it appears that their primary mandate is to harass and intimidate homeless people, skateboarders, squeegee kids and anyone else our corporate overlords deem to be on the wrong side of B.C.'s Safe (for the rich) Streets Act.
Most trouble downtown actually happens in the middle of the night/early morning, thanks to extended bar hours and the establishment of the Granville 'entertainment zone', another initiative of DVBIA members. Apparently, drunk and disorderly is fine as long as one pays the cover charge. If anybody doesn't feel comfortable shopping or dining downtown without the presence of several pseudo-cops paid for by City taxpayers, you should probably be on the first SkyTrain to Metrotown, where everything is white, clean, and neat and Mall Security calls in the Mounties if someone picks a soda can out of a garbage bin. When this page pays his taxes, he expects to be getting actual police services provided by actual police officers.
No comments:
Post a Comment