Why should you care about crime in Vancouver?
Well, there's quite a lot of it and I think Vancouver is a
cautionary tale for a lot of cities.
And I know every major city has a lot of crime.
I don't know how Vancouver crime would compare to somewhere like
Detroit or Chicago or even New York City, but these are cities
that are quite a lot bigger. Most of the people in Vancouver
are very law abiding, hardworking, honest, good
people. On one side of the coin,
Vancouver is a very beautiful place, Happy to live here.
I'm happy I was born and raised here.
The beaches are beautiful summertime, there's so many
wonderful beaches, trails, if you love hiking, if you're a
boater, if you're into fishing, if you're into skiing, if you're
in the camping, actually a great city to live in if you can
afford it. People in Vancouver have, they
have a shell, they're kind of icy.
But once you break the past that you you can build really quality
friendships. But there's a lot of crazy
people here. See the city, it's almost like
it's it's two cities. There's a normal people, the
healthy people, the health conscious people, the attractive
people that come here for acting.
Vancouver has one of the largest movie industries in North
America. So many movies, so many TV
shows, so many Netflix specials. Seems like every science fiction
show on Netflix was filmed to Vancouver.
I recognize all the places, right?
So there's a lot of actors, a lot of people that come here for
for work in the entertainment business, right?
Travel to 40 major cities throughout North America.
I was always happy to come back to Vancouver.
I I spent some time in New York. I love New York, NY.
Of all the cities I've been to, had the most impact on me.
Like the city that I think about.
Oh, I'd love to go back there. I want to go back there, but
hey, New York is kind of grungy. It's kind of dirty.
Don't see a lot of green stuff. And when I came back to
Vancouver, the green, the fresh air or the the, the quiet, the
tranquility, was this so overwhelming from a place like
from New York. On the surface, there's this
beauty, this greenery. I I don't think there's a a
better place in North America if you are an active, healthy,
outdoors, athletic person, gorgeous city.
The neighborhoods are amazing. There's so many diverse
neighborhoods. Now I'm going to talk with the
ugly Vancouver. And the ugly Vancouver is kind
of like underneath the surface. There's a lot of mental illness
here. See, The thing is, is that
Canada is a relatively cold country, especially in the
winter time. A lot of people with mental
health issues or drug addiction, they migrate here because they
think it's a warmer climate. They think it's going to be
easier here. And it's not the case because
Vancouver is not an easy city to break into.
You got to know people, you got to have a bit of in.
It's just the way it is. It's a small community.
It's a small city, right? And sometimes it's not the most
friendly to outsiders. It just is just, it is what it
is. And so if you come here and you
have no money and you have mental illness and you have an
underlying drug addiction, you're going to get marginalized
pretty fast. It's happened is that, hey, I'm
going to go to Vancouver and come here and they're first of
all, they're shocked at the the sticker price of what rent is.
That cost of living is high. They find it hard to meet
friends, be people from Vancouver who are health
conscious and good things going on.
They don't really want to invite someone in their life that has
drug problems and not from here and maybe cause problems because
I've seen it so many times. It's just is the mental health
capital of Canada. Most therapists, most
psychiatrists, most patients. There's a lot of people that
have underlining mental illness, lot of outpatient programs, a
lot of people that come here. It's not what they said and they
get marginalized. Then Vancouver the ugly.
The availability of drugs is nowhere like I've ever seen
anywhere in the world. And I know drugs exist
everywhere, but nowhere have I ever seen an open air drug
market in a three block radius like Hastings St. where I can
score crack, heroin, fentanyl, pills, walk down the street,
hey, got math, got boom, someone will have a handout.
It's an open air drug market. So if you're a recovering
addict, maybe you had a drug problem in the past and you come
here and maybe that job didn't work out because there's a lot
of bullshit here too. People come here, they're not
prepared for how expensive it is.
They're not prepared that Vancouver people seem a little
cold. No, the Vancouver just weary
because they didn't burn. They've been, you know, trust me
on that one. They and so makes people kind of
more standoffish to new people, especially people that party and
do drugs and things like that in Vancouver.
The ugly You can get drugs really cheap and guess what?
Now you can make lots of friends.
Now you feel welcome because you have drugs and you're generous
with them. You're gonna make lots of
friends, right? I probably was more of a binge
drinker rather than a binge drug user.
I've used drugs in the past, but I don't use them now.
I worked in the IT industry. I worked in the stock market
industry and and a lot of times after work you'd go out to blow
off steam, decompress and need drink heavy.
I found I was always a person that seemed to be the most
strenuous when I was drunk. Boom.
I had all these friends around me buying rounds and rounds of
drinks. I felt like I had all the
friends in the world stop doing that.
Those friends disappear and now you're lonely.
So that just gives you perspective, right?
So drugs are very easy to get. Then what happens?
A lot of people here is they get in over their head.
They can't afford their drugs anymore.
They can't afford the rent, get their self into a crisis
situation, and they end up homeless.
They end up on Hastings St. or they end up in one of these
awful hotel rooms that are full of bedbugs and now to cope with
that they're doing harder drugs. It's a cycle.
I've seen Soma if you probably if you went down Hastings St.
and you took the majority of the people there, from my
understanding I would say majority of those people are
from out of town. The reason why I say that is
that things that the ministry does or Ministry of Social
Services, they like to send these people back on one way bus
tickets because other jurisdictions in Canada send
their people here with one way bus tickets.
So it's like all these different jurisdictions and cities are
sending all their unwanted by one way bus tickets.
But also with that, you're getting, you're getting sex
offenders, you're getting drug addicts, you're getting people
evading the law, you're getting all kinds of problems.
And again, there's this perception.
Vancouver's beautiful, Vancouver's awesome.
It's it's like the California of Canada.
It tracks a lot of people for the wrong reasons, our people
that come here for the right reasons, and they get in over
their heads with drugs because the drugs are so available.
Then there's a crime aspect in Vancouver, the beautiful people
are pretty law abiding. They don't get involved in drugs
or crime or anything of that nature.
But then there's the Vancouver. The ugly is that if you are a
criminal and if you are the legal system definitely favors
you know, the defendants. If they can afford top level
legal counsel in banking jurisdictions right, there's
companies that will move their corporate location to get better
tax breaks like you know places like Delaware or the Virgin
Islands or Cayman Islands. Like there's there's
jurisdictions were you will move your company assets so you can
save on taxes and you know you take advantage of loopholes and
blah blah blah, right? So think about if you're a
criminal organization, there's a place called Vancouver where the
judges are pretty lenient, the senses are not very high,
there's highly skilled lawyers that really know the law and to
your benefit if you can afford them.
And it's a money laundering paradise.
The casinos were allowing people to walk in with hockey bags full
of cash on camera and then trading them for chips like
being in plain as day. What?
They're obviously so again, so if the government didn't know
that people were just walking into their government owned
casinos and laundering cash, well, shame on them.
And if they did know, well, shame on them.
But there's nowhere better on Earths, well, maybe North
America to launder your money. So if you're criminal
organization, International Criminal organization, right,
you move here, there is an investor program.
You can become a citizen if you pay basically by your
citizenship. Basically they become Canadian
citizens because they buy their way in.
They have access to our financial markets.
They can launder their money through our housing because you
can just. And that's what drove prices of
housing through the roof because Vancouver became a holding
assets for criminal organizations to hold their
money in and then have access to the Canadian banking and credit
casinos to wash your money and a large population that consume
drugs. It's like the massive pipeline,
$1,000,000 a day of drug sales of people consuming drugs.
So you have access now to a those drugs turns into cash
instantly thing. This is a true story and it's so
outrageous that I hardly believe it myself.
But I witnessed it Hasting street.
I remember I was looking for my friend Kevin and I finally found
him because he would go and disappear and I found him in
this area called Pigeon Park. And Pigeon Park is kind of like
a lot of people drink there. It's like a drinking spot of
people drinking booze and of course using crack.
So I found my friend Kevin at Pigeon Park and I said Okay, I'm
going to take you home, right? And time to go home.
And he said I just need one more piece of crack because he was
smoking heavy crack at this time.
And we'll we'll buy some crack and then you can Take Me Home.
So I need some drugs to wean off.
I can't just go cold Turkey And it's like hey, whatever.
And he goes and I want to show you something that's going to
blow your mind. I'm like Okay.
So we're walking up Hastings St. kind of closer to I guess the
pender like more on pender I believe.
And there was this old hotel like really rough looking kind
of like it was. I think it advertised it was
like for backpacking or something like that, like
hostile for out of town people. But it was all homeless people.
And there was like a lineup down the street around the.
But this lineup was moving fast. He was old.
Let's get in the lineup. I'm like, OK, what the fuck's
going on? He goes, I'm going to buy some
crack. So we go in this lineup and the
lineup moves fast and we're in the door.
Kevin looks at the guy, says something.
Guy just kind of ushers in. We walk into the hotel now, this
is a really rundown, barely, you know, should be a condemned
building, looks like a condemned, but there's probably
about 100 people in the lineup and the area inside the hotel
lobby area is very crowded with people and people are going in
and out fast. We get up to the calendar, cabin
pulls out a $50.00 bill asked for $50 crack.
The guy pulls out a big crack rock, he grabs it and we go, and
I'm just looking like, holy shit.
And I'm just watching people. So every every second you can
count 123-4567. Eight people are pulling out
tens 20s but people are buying you know crack at 1020 dollars a
pop. But thing is is as fast as you
can count as fast as that transactions going and and this
is open air this is like everyone you know and down the
street there's a police station and there's patrol cars and
there's cops on beats and I my mind is blowing absolutely
blowing and I just said to Kevin like how long is this place been
operating for it was all about a couple weeks now that's the type
of drug atmosphere that takes place in Vancouver.
Like it it it just blows your mind.
Like I remember like I used to, I lived downtown quite a bit and
I would take friends that when they come in front has friend
from Australia, he was a roadie actually for like rock bands
AC/DC, they're big bands from Australia.
He would come and do a show at BC Place or at time it's called
GM placing, it's called Roger, It's Rogers Arena now.
So I remember one time, so I said to him, hey, what a sea
cycle, blow your mind And it was a welfare Wednesday, which is
you know the day when all the people get on social assistance
get their checks. The summertime it was August.
I remember it was that band he was wrote it for that band.
They had they. I can't remember the name of the
band, but they had a hit song called How Bizarre.
I don't know if he can Google that song, but I remember that
was a song right? He was here for.
So anyways, I take him down Hastings St. during the height
of welfare Wednesday and it is like just a carnival of mayhem
and ambulance and cop cars and thousands of people that is
using and smoking crack and doing drugs.
And he he just said I've traveled all over the world cuz
he know he's a roadie rings. I've never seen anything.
And then I point on Main and Hastings that police station has
now closed up and there's a cop station right?
There's a he he he couldn't comprehend it.
Right. So again Vancouver, the ugly
right so massive drug consumption which must attract
people that are in the drug trade because Jesus like you
know it's just a guaranteed you know, take your take your
powder, take your whatever it is and turn it into cash.
So there's that right. And the strange thing that's
always blowing my mind all my life.
There's never seem to be any major boss that shuts down
Hasting St. never heard of it. They bust the dealers on the
street. They do these little cleanups
once in a while that this almost like our just don't really do
anything. But you've never heard of some
big organization. You know name the one you can
think of been shut down and it now now Hastings St. dries a
bone. There's no more drug.
You know it just never has happened being around Vancouver
all my life and I remember when I was a kid my mom would take me
to Woodward's. Woodward's was a department
store that was a BC department store and they had grocery store
on one floor. Then it was like for any
department store to Woodward's this is like in the 80s and it
was like a bit rough and you know it was downtown.
But we didn't. There was No Fear.
But then when crack hit it changed the street.
Like it was probably like late 80s when the crack hit Vancouver
and it was a that was a game changer in my opinion.
Like they're like especially when I talk to old timers and
maybe old I can remember I know an old biker he's telling me
like back in the 70s you know they'd go down to Hastings St.
and they'd get the stuff called wax.
I don't know apparently was some type of speed or something that
they did he's do is always talk about that or downtown.
That area was more known for rubbies as my mom would call him
like Alcoholics hobos people that would drink like you know
cheap wine. It was more like that was more
Hasting street where people would drink you know and there I
think that there was always heroin.
But I think typically the heroin people would just buy their
heroin then kind of go indoors. You didn't see the epic St. life
with with cocaine because now they're not sleeping.
They're like and they constantly need another hit another hit
another hit and and so that was a real game changer as far as
like the dynamic of of changing the the the scene of of Hastings
St. And then with that became more
girls or more women getting desperate because they were
getting hooked on cocaine and and and more of the harder
drugs. And then they started doing
prostitution and then that attracted the predators creeps
that would target these women because they were desperate for
drugs or dope sick And then they were selling themselves for is.
Vancouver's always had a prostitution, a high rate of
prostitution. There was lots of prostitutes
along E Broadway, which is kind of not the downtown, but there
was lots along E Broadway because I remember my brother
got a job at some government warehouse.
It was like kind of like East Broadway and Fraser St.
It's like a government warehouse.
It was called the election branch.
I guess they had they it was a warehouse that had all the
paperwork for, you know, upcoming municipal and BC
elections and and in the summertime they would open the
doors because we get really hot. And I remember one time, I mean,
I went by to get give my brother his lunch and there was all
these really like fracked out prostitutes and bikinis like
trying to go in. And they're like, you know,
they'd actually walk into the warehouse and, you know, try to
get a trick from the men working there.
Right. So this is kind of like 80s,
right? So this is like when the cocaine
really started, hit, you started to see this kind of stuff where
you never saw before. And then in the 90s it started
to get really bad because there was more drugs, more pills.
I don't think meth was around. I think I remember meth kind of
like in the club scene, a crack. Cocaine was was the big thing in
the 80s and and I'd say even up to the 90s and then course now
fentanyl and meth and you know all these different derivative
drugs that are out there. So going back to like early
Vancouver, like there was Davie St. and there's a really a good
documentary, the hookers of Davie St. and Davie St. was
crazy in the West End, was not from Vancouver.
This is so confusing, but I'll break it down.
So there's the West side of Vancouver, so the City of
Vancouver is divided by east and West, right?
So Main St. divides the city. Actually it's Ontario St. but
divides the city. East side, West side.
Traditionally the West side was seen as more affluent or the
east side was more working class.
And but then there's the West End.
The West End is a neighborhood in downtown Vancouver which is
mostly apartment blocks and stuff like that.
In the past it was considered more of a gay area of Vancouver
and I don't think as much anymore.
Like Davie St. still has a lot of gay stores and gay clubs but
back in the day in the 80s and 90s it was it was a lot more of
a gay neighborhood and but but heavy partying.
It was like known for parties and things like that.
I'll tell some West End stories in another podcast cuz they're
they're and they're incredible. So there's a West End and then
there's West Vancouver which is across the water and West
Vancouver is probably the most affluent neighborhood and and
all of Canada like and one side of the North Shore is North
Vancouver and then the other side is West Vancouver.
So anyway so this is the West End and it was it was hookers
all the way up Davie St. all the way down into downtown on on
Seymour and Robson. So there's always been in
Vancouver this underbelly of St. life of prostitution and drugs.
And in Vancouver the beautiful is very different than
Vancouver, the ugly at night. So again, this is, this is the
whole point of this this particular podcast.
Vancouver, the beautiful, the gorgeous, the scenic, the lovely
neighborhoods, the communities, the world class restaurants do
love this place. It's it's a it is my home as
cities, like in my DNA, it's in my blood.
But there's something unique and creepy and dark too.
You know, this beautiful facade has a very dark underbelly.
And the other thing about place like Hastings St. and this is
something that was talked about. I've heard, you know, people
that who put a lot of time and effort talking about this, that
a lot of people believe that Hastings St. is a place for what
they call a dark tourism. You know, people that are like,
you know, they we've all heard about sex tourism, right?
People that go to places like Cambodia and.
You know, third world countries and molest children, which I
believe they should be rounded up and shot for doing such a
disgusting thing. But there's people that come to
Vancouver for dark tourism. There's vulnerable women or drug
addicts, you know, that they that they can target and do
terrible sick things. To some could be serial killers,
like, you know, we're talking about the Highway of Tears,
right? See what makes the Highway of
Tears unique? Remember, Highway Tears is not
in Vancouver, it's in northern BC but obviously a murderous
highway and what makes it unique and when I was posting about it
before and then people are saying, well, do you think
they'll ever catch the serial killer?
It's like it's not one person, it's an isolated area where
women are vulnerable. It's not just one person.
It's it's it's people that go there knowing that they could
have access to a vulnerable woman and they can just flee.
Because you know, once you're on that highway, you're gone
hundreds of miles in any direction.
If you go up north, you're in Alaska, you go down South,
you're back in, you know, Metro Vancouver.
If you go E you're back in Alberta like here, you're gone
like and get away with it, which that's been the case.
It seems like the only time these cases get solved if they
get caught in the act. If they do get caught and they
can afford counsel, they can delay a very lengthy trial and
and this seems like the court system in my opinion.
I'm not a legal expert, but it seems to favor the criminal who
can afford good legal counsel. If you have any questions, feel
free to directly DM me. I'm always happy to talk to
people and I'm always happy to interact with you and every one
of you. Have an awesome day and thank
you so much. Have a great day.