508 replies to this topic

[Stephen James]

Logo could just as easily be read as "Our Downturn".

"Our Dumbtown"

[Stephen James]

Projecting displays onto buildings does give you something to look at as you step around the junkies, dealers and other human waste that is overtaking the downtown core.

short term strategy to have you look up at the pretty display... not down at stupid, failed policy.

[spanky123]

Capital Iron went bankrupt months ago.

 

The parking lot is owned by Reliance and there are/will soon be new owners of the CI name leasing that spot.

Edited by spanky123, 22 May 2023 - 09:19 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Grandma’s wise words seem appropriate now

I am sad and embarrassed to drive visitors down Douglas Street into Victoria. The gateway to the city has been given over to tents, shopping carts, people lying anywhere they please, shooting-up and smoking weed.

There was a time when visitors said “so beautiful, so pretty, so clean, so safe.”

Now we hear “what the heck happened? So dirty, so ugly, so unsafe.”

City Hall can throw dollars at beautification, flags and flowers, but it will not work if they don’t clean out and restore the downtown core of the city.

There are a lot of sayings my grandma used to quote about lipstick, ears and more, but I probably can’t use them and I don’t want to insult the lovely animals.

Joanne Rogers

Victoria


https://www.timescol...-street-7041871

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 May 2023 - 05:32 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

San Francisco Standard:

And San Francisco’s favorite cleanliness fixation, human or animal feces, continues to be a sore spot for the city: Almost half of the surveyed commercial areas observed feces. Citywide, that figure was just 30%.

[todd]

If that’s how San Francisco is doing it I guess we don’t have enough.

[todd]

“Does Paris have a public urination problem?”:
BBC: https://youtu.be/_90wZOt6aD8


“ it’s vibrant culture “

Edited by todd, 25 May 2023 - 09:28 AM.

[todd]

What if Victoria adopts a more traditional style of “pissoir“?:




https://en.m.wikiped...rg/wiki/Pissoir

Edited by todd, 25 May 2023 - 10:08 AM.

[GaryOak]

That's all good and well but not everyone can piss standing up, nor does it help if someone needs to go number 2.

[Matt R.]

99.99% of the problem is people who pee standing up.

[Victoria Watcher]

I think everyone can piss standing up if they practice.

Females go back country camping.

As for #2, plan that out.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 May 2023 - 12:16 PM.

[Matt R.]

Not everyone can stand, is the point I guess. Don’t see many mobility impaired folks pissing in the alley on Friday after the Wicket closes.

[Victoria Watcher]

Cleaning up downtown is only superficial

Victoria councillors announcing that they want to clean up and beautify downtown makes me think of the phrase “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” which means “making superficial or cosmetic changes to a product in a futile effort to disguise its fundamental failings.”

 

Diane Ball

James Bay

 

 

 

 

A call for Victoria to clean up its streets

I’m 75 and have lived in Victoria for 65 of those years. What do I think of downtown Victoria?

 

It’s a zoo of every kind of drugs on Douglas Street between Fisgard and Humboldt. And on Pandora Avenue from Cook to Blanshard.

I expect city council to do something about this ongoing problem while wildly spending my tax dollar on irrelevant issues.

 

Colin Cameron

Victoria

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...r-lanes-7129899

[Victoria Watcher]

San Francisco ranks last among 63 cities in downtown recovery, data shows

 

 

During the week of April 10 this year, the downtown area of San Francisco was at about 29% of its activity during the same period in 2019, while other Bay Area cities were more vibrant.

 

https://abc7news.com...fices/13374160/

[Victoria Watcher]

Decline of San Francisco’s downtown is a wake-up call for other cities

 

 

Jack Mogannam, manager of Sam’s Cable Car Lounge in downtown San Francisco, relishes the days when his bar stayed open past midnight every night, welcoming crowds that jostled on the streets, bar hopped, window browsed or just took in the night air.

 

He’s had to drastically curtail those hours because of diminished foot traffic, and business is down 30 per cent. A sign outside the lounge pleads: “We need your support!”

 

“I’d stand outside my bar at 10 p.m. and look, it would be like a party on the street,” Mr. Mogannam said. “Now you see, like, six people on the street up and down the block. It’s a ghost town.”

After a three-year exile, the pandemic now fading from view, the expected crowds and electric ambience of downtown have not returned.

 

Empty storefronts dot the streets. Large “going out of business” signs hang in windows. Uniqlo, Nordstrom Rack and Anthropologie are gone. Last month, the owner of Westfield San Francisco Centre, a fixture for more than 20 years, said it was handing the mall back to its lender, citing declining sales and foot traffic. The owner of two towering hotels, including a Hilton, did the same.

 

Shampoo, toothpaste and other toiletries are locked up at downtown pharmacies. And armed robbers recently hit a Gucci store in broad daylight.

 

 

 

 

https://www.theglobe...r-other-cities/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 16 July 2023 - 10:36 PM.

[Barrrister]

The joy of Woke politics coming to your neighbourhood soon.

[spanky123]

The joy of Woke politics coming to your neighbourhood soon.

 

With an emphasis on YOUR neighbourhood. 

 

The zero barrier shelters aren't popping up next to any politician's house!

[Victoria Watcher]

Where are the priorities for downtown Victoria?

At the beginning of July I was thrilled to see Swatch opening on Government Street, filling one of the many empty stores in downtown Victoria. Kudos for someone willing to try something new instead of yet another souvenir shop.

 

I went downtown on Saturday afternoon and enjoyed the pop-up concert at the corner of Government and View Street. However, a block down View Street a group of addicts were openly smoking crack outside McDonald’s, and the Swatch store has a boarded up smashed window.

How can we expect entrepreneurs to exist in Victoria when their store is vandalized within a month of opening and drug addicts fill the streets frightening away visitors and residents?

 

When will our city and provincial governments realize that drugs and crime are destroying Victoria, and that putting on pop-up concerts is merely “fiddling while Rome burns”?

 

When will our governments prioritize public safety and peace, order and good government over “harm reduction” and the “trauma” of drug abusers and the criminal element that prey on them?

 

 

Alan Humphries

Victoria

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...ictoria-7345527

 

 

 

 

Maybe this is the real reason why cruise ships don't want to let their passengers into town.

[Barrrister]

We stopped going downtown as much as possible because of this same reason. I feel for the businesses that we used to frequent but on the other hand I did not see the business community come out en mass in the last election to oppose getting more of the same.

[Victoria Watcher]

Should $50,000 be spent to ‘beautify’ downtown Victoria? City staff think so

 

When you ask if downtown Victoria needs a little sprucing up, the responses vary.

 

“I think it’s very clean especially compared to San Francisco,” said Angel More, who was visiting for the weekend.

 

“Flowers and stuff would make it beautiful, but we need to focus on like the core of cleanup,” said longtime Vancouver Islander Cherie.

 

If you ask Victoria city staff and the Downtown Victoria Business Association (DVBA), some blocks need a freshening up.

 

“Really anything that would improve the facade, the look, the feel of that block would be considered in this program,” said Jeff Bray, CEO of the DVBA.

 

Four months after paid parking hours in Victoria were approved to be extended, Victoria city staff are now hoping to use some of those earnings (earmarked at $50,000) towards beautifying B.C.’s capital.

 

 

 

https://www.cheknews...ink-so-1162773/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 01 August 2023 - 12:43 AM.