On the eve of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, bar owners in Vancouver’s entertainment district are calling on the city and province to act immediately to address street disorder and public safety concerns.
The half dozen hospitality industry veterans who’ve put their lives and millions of dollars into Granville Street say the iconic strip is on life support.
“To see it fall apart due to bad policy decisions that aren’t getting undone is frankly frustrating, sad and heartbreaking,” said Cabana Nightclub owner Dave Kershaw.
With business down approximately 60 per cent, the six operators of multiple nightclubs on or near the Granville Strip said they’ve got nothing left to lose.
“I’ve owned a bar on Granville since 1996 and I’ve never seen it this bad,” Kershaw told Global News in an interview.
The street was already struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic when the Howard Johnson hotel at 1176 Granville became a single-room occupancy hotel, or SRO, in April 2020.
That June, the province bought the former 110-room hotel for $55 million, to house people who’d been living in encampments – including individuals with serious substance use and mental health challenges.
The building was initially used as an emergency shelter for former residents of the Oppenheimer Park encampment.
“In the interim, the Howard Johnson site will operate as temporary supportive housing while long-term plans are developed,” stated a June 24, 2020 B.C. government news release on the purchase.
Atira was hired to operate the ‘Luugat Hotel’ housing, which was to include wraparound supports and 24/7 staffing to provide security to residents of the building and the surrounding neighbourhood.
“The provincial government taking over the Howard Johnson hotel on Granville Street is kind of where it really, really spiralled out of control,” said Paul Stoilen with The MRG Group.
“It was like an overnight switch,” said Twelve West Nightclub Owner Mike Morissette.
“The switch was flipped where it went into a street that you didn’t recognize anymore,” explained Blueprint’s Bill Kerasiotis.
Once a destination for young people, Morissette said the experience of a “big night out” was lost.
“It’s supposed to be glamourous, we’ve had our lineup where somebody got in an argument with a homeless person and they threw shit at them.”
Kershaw said individuals are often camped outside his club when he arrives to open it while staff and patrons regularly witness open drug use and street disorder.
“Violent behaviour and outbursts by people who clearly need a higher level of care than what’s being provided,” said Kershaw.
Kershaw recalled a frightening encounter in 2023 where he said a man and woman living at the Howard Johnson tried to enter his club as employees were setting up for the night.
“My staff are like ‘Hey’, you can’t come in and then they lost their minds and ended up throwing rocks at my staff. The gentleman ended up pulling a knife on them, that gentleman was subdued with a beanbag gun.”
Kershaw reported the incident to the VPD, and handed over his surveillance video.
Vancouver police said the file is still under investigation and hasn’t yet been forwarded to Crown counsel for charge assessment.
“We’ve had shootings, we’ve had knifings we’ve had scary stuff happen,” said Alan Goodall of Aura Nightclub. “And people, once they are exposed to that, they won’t come back.”
Goodall has owned Aura, which is on the ground floor of the Howard Johnson, for 16 years.
“I’m a wily old veteran, I’ve been through ups and downs,” Goodall told Global News in an interview. “But these last few years you know, they’ve been tough.”
Aura has been hit with well over 200 floods, primarily caused by sprinkler systems in the Luugat SRO being set off, he said.
“I’ve lost count and some of them have been major flooding,” said Goodall. “The residents upstairs, they’ll set off their sprinkler heads and … when the sprinkler heads go off, it’s a much different picture – things get ruined.”
Aura’s ceiling has caved in multiple times while Goodall said the entire tile floor had to be replaced because the subfloor was rotted out.
Goodall, who said several managers at the Luugat building told him a work order had been submitted to BC Housing, ended up waiting more than a year for repairs to start and was forced to close his club for four weeks in early 2023 to facilitate the work.
“The cost of replacing the subfloor and approximately 1,500 square feet of tile was $51,000,” Goodall told Global News.
While the nightclub owner continued to pay his full rent during the closure and was not able to earn any revenue, he said the business did not receive any compensation from BC Housing.
Plumbers, said Goodall, had a difficult time trying to figure out why Aura was experiencing regular flooding in its office and basement – until they discovered one of the SRO residents had tried to flush a wig down their toilet. The hairpiece was eventually found lodged deep in one of the building’s main drainage pipes.
Goodall said a flood once occurred in the club’s washroom just before he opened his doors on a Saturday night while
On other occasions, club patrons have been doused on the dance floor.
“You know you’re operating, water’s pouring down on your customers,” said Goodall, who claims he is still waiting for BC Housing to complete some of the repairs.
Residents of the former Howard Johnson told Global News heavy drug users have wrecked the building.
“Every damn day, the sprinkler system or the fire alarm goes off,” said Eric Buurman, who moved in to the supportive housing after years of living on the street. “Some goof smoking dope or something sets it off on purpose.”
Douglas Ehret, who was housed at the former hotel after leaving the Strathcona Park encampment in 2021, said he’s not getting all the supports he needs.
“I’m supposed to have a support worker, I don’t even know who that is,” Ehret told Global News. “More programming, more job skills more, ‘Hi how are ya, what are you going through?’ you know, because if you’re angry and frustrated and you got nobody to talk to, you’re just angrier right.”
“There (are) no counsellors here, really nobody even gives a fuck here that works here,” added Buurman.
Cabana is on the ground level of another Atira-run SRO, the St. Helen’s Hotel, and Kershaw said he’s also incurred costly damage.
“The flooding is not a broken pipe, the flooding is someone smoking crack, passing out and setting off the sprinkler,” Kershaw said in an interview. “The flooding is someone wanting to drown the rats in their wall, kicking a hole in the wall literally and throwing buckets of water in there.”
Kershaw said he’s seen up to 100 water incidents annually in recent years, sometimes during club hours, while firefighters are also busy responding to hundreds of false alarms.
“Everything’s now overflowing onto Davie,” said Vince Marino.
Marino has owned nightclubs since 1994 and currently operates The Junction and Pumpjack pubs.
“During the World Sevens, we had people actually email us to ask if it was safe to walk up Davie Street,” recounted Marino in an interview. “We’ve never had that question asked of us in the 30 years that we’ve been here.”
“Tourists are coming to Vancouver and coming to Granville and being like WTF what happened to Vancouver,” said Kershaw.
“It’s more than just losing a few nightclubs, you’re losing Vancouver,” Morissette said.
The bar owners are demanding immediate action from the city of Vancouver and the province.
“We’re going to entertain tens of thousands of people from all across the world – this is just not good enough,” said Kerasiotis.
“We’re compassionate to the people’s needs but there just has to be another way,” added Stoilen.
“They’ve got to have a better plan because the current plan is not working,” said Kershaw.
“We need help right now,” said Goodall, who fears other nightclubs – including his – might have to close if the situation gets worse.
The bar operators said one immediate solution would be to expand SkyTrain service to bring more people to and from the entertainment district.
When asked if it would be adding late night or early morning SkyTrain service between Surrey and downtown Vancouver on the weekends anytime soon, TransLink said it is still planning for transit changes leading up to and during FIFA.
If nothing changes, the group said the hub of a night-time economy that employs 10,000 people and generates an estimated $750 million in economic benefits to the city will be lost.
“We want to see Granville Street win and we all care,” said Kershaw.