Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and its low-income residents are facing another potential blow as London Drugs is considering moving out of its location in the Woodward’s building when its lease expires in October.
“We want to stay here but there (are) limits to what we can endure,” the Canadian pharmacy chain’s president and chief operating officer told Global News Thursday.
Clint Mahlman said London Drugs bought into the City of Vancouver and the province’s vision when it became the anchor tenant for the Woodward’s redevelopment in 2009.
The Canadian retailer was optimistic the project’s mix of market condos and social housing would help transform the Downtown Eastside.
But Mahlman said London Drugs hasn’t seen the increased housing density it expected in the area.
“While there was hope for the first couple of years, It’s been a real struggle,” he said in an interview.
Shattered glass is still visible at the front entrance to the store at Abbott and East Hastings Streets, where Mahlman said a man used a pipe to try and attack staff earlier this month before threatening to kill them.
The suspect, who has 25 aliases and a court history in B.C. dating back to 1999, was arrested by Vancouver police.
Tye William Lawr, 43, was released from custody by the courts after being charged with mischief, uttering death threats and assault with a weapon in connection with the Jan. 9 incident.
“There’s no worse feeling in the world in management when you can’t protect your employees,” said Mahlman.
“The region is not safe,” Woodward’s building resident Betania Victor told Global News. “When I go to the stores … I feel the employees here are very brave.”
Even with security, London Drugs said the physical and verbal violence against its workers has been intolerable for many years.
Coupled with street disorder in the area, Mahlman said customers are also not feeling safe.
“We’ve lost over well over $10 million in the 15 years we’ve been here. Very few retailers are prepared to make that type of investment in the community.”
“When a big tenant like London Drugs has had it with the neighbourhood it sends a message that it’s difficult to do business here and businesses are sick of it,” said Gastown Residents Association vice-president Jeremy Omand.
Fed up with crime, café JJ Bean closed its doors in the Woodward’s development in the summer of 2023.
TD Bank, which had its windows smashed twice in a matter of weeks in 2022, moved out of 109 West Hastings Street last year.
“We need London Drugs, we need Nester’s,” David Day told Global News Thursday as he played the piano in the atrium of the Woodward’s building. “This is the root of this small community.”
Day, a 25-year resident of the Downtown Eastside, said he remembers when the original Woodward’s building was demolished in 2006, and the explosion of rats afterwards.
The new atrium space, where he and his neighbours gather, feels like home, Day said.
“If London Drugs left here, it would make a big hole in the community that I don’t know who could fill,” said Day.
“There (are) no repercussions against repeat violent and chronic offenders,” said Mahlman. “And something needs to change.”
The same scenario Mahlman said, is playing out in downtown cores across the province.
“We’re at a crisis point,” he said. “And if the government doesn’t act soon, we’ll lose our downtowns, just like what we’ve seen in the U.S..”