THEFT IN THE CITY: In the first of a two-part series, we look at how property crime affects Vancouver
ETHAN BARON
Province
Glue down the welcome mat: Company’s coming, and it’s not invited.
InVancouver, famed for exceptional quality of life and world-class scenery, pervasive property crime is stealing security from its citizens and trashing the city’s reputation.
The three maps generated by the Sunday Province (left) offer a crime-byneighbourhood perspective never available before.
They show, in living colour, the glowing red hotbed of theft that is downtown Vancouver. Some thieves travel; the maps show the spread of property crime outward from the Downtown Eastside and Granville mall, across the bridges and along main thoroughfares and SkyTrain routes. Some thieves work closer to home; the maps show neighbourhoods where even a single, embedded, drug-addicted person can wreak havoc.
Drugs drive the city’s property crime. Heroin, crack, cocaine and crystalmeth addicts live in an endless quest for anything to sell to feed their need.
Police estimate they spend 95 per cent of their time responding to property crime. The Vancouver Board of Trade says residents and vehicle owners in Vancouver lose some $108 million a year, or $460 per household, to these kinds of crime. Businesses lose another $20 million, the board says.
The kettle walked off
For East Vancouver residents Trey Wells and Arwyn Gierak, the problems started with a toilet brush.
The pair moved from the west side to East Vancouver last year. Soon after moving in, a used toilet bowl brush disappeared from its drying spot outside their Trout Lake townhouse. Then the front doormat vanished. One day, Wells put an overheated kettle on the front steps to cool.
“This old guy was taking it away. I was like, ‘Excuse me.’ He actually started bitching at me because the kettle wasn’t in good condition. His justification was anything outside the house was public property. I was like, ‘Oh, great, where do you live?’”
A thief dug up and absconded with a rhododendron from their front walkway, along with plants belonging to neighbours. Now Wells and Gierak don’t take any chances. Loose items are never left outside. Their welcome mat? They’ve glued it down.
KITSILANO: A break-and-enter bonanza
Kitsilano, seaside land of trendy yuppies and not-so-starving students, is home to five-dollar lattes, $100 yoga tights and staggering property crime.
For the drug addicts of downtown Vancouver and the Downtown Eastside, Kits is a mecca,a pot of gold at the end of the Burrard Street Bridge.
Kits and neighbouring Fairview share with Renfrew-Collingwood the distinction of being the three worst non-inner-city neighbourhoods in Vancouver for break-and-enter crimes.
“We get desperate people on the streets and that’s what drives it,” says Kitsilano Community Association president Robert Haines, who says the homes in Kits are vulnerable.
“There are not that many buildings over three storeys,” Haines notes.
Accessing upper floors doesn’t seem to pose much challenge for some of the city’s skilful thieves, says Vancouver police Const. Tim Fanning. “They can scale up. Some of them are amazing as far as what they’ll do.”
Just ask Fairview resident Ian Tootill. He lost a $6,500 mountain bike in a “commando-style” theft from his second-floor False Creek deck.
“They came up the side of the building . . . I’ve had a car stereo taken worth $3,500. I’ve had all my camping equipment stolen on two occasions out of the back of a car, once in a parking lot and once downstairs in the building.”