Business rep: City should be commended for riot response
Posted June 18, 2011 4:31 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The man who represents Vancouver’s downtown businesses says the city has to be commended for its response to Wednesday’s riot.
Charles Gauthier with Vancouver’s Downtown Business Improvement Association says the City of Vancouver deserves more credit than it’s been getting, for protecting businesses that night and following morning.
“The city went out and boarded up 30 storefronts. It wasn’t the individual property owners or the individual businesses that did that. The city also contacted a number of security companies to come down and stand guard to ensure there wasn’t going to be any other looting,” he explains. He says so far he hasn’t heard of any businesses who blame the city for lack of protection and plan to sue.
Gauthier adds the clean-up effort after the riot has left him speechless. He says he rarely gets choked up, but admits one image from the morning after is seared in his brain.
“A woman who was on her hands and knees with a pair of gloves. She was literally picking up the smallest pieces of glass on the sidewalk as if someone was going to walk there barefoot. She just wanted to make sure it was spic and span.”
He calls the effort to clean up the glass and the soot overwhelming.
Meanwhile, the association is collecting stories and pictures from people who love Vancouver. To share your comments, go to Facebook or Tweet at #vanlover.
