1201 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

She shouldn’t have worn that skirt.

Her glance invited too much attention.

If she’d only gone to a place of good report.

Then none of that would have happened, because it takes two to tango.

[Rob Randall]

Don't you dare go there.

[Nparker]

...the Mayor and her TV allies have successfully stripped the personality of the core out, they have deconstructed it...

In addition to the increased vulnerability many people feel about spending time downtown, and despite what "stats" may indicate (peoples' feelings are real); it definitely seems as though CoV officials want to destroy much of what has made the city special in pursuit of "social justice" and their version of how the world should be.

[Mike K.]

Don't you dare go there.

Virtue signalling does not protect people facing danger, or solve the issues confronting our society.

[rjag]

I'm sorry, if anyone thinks that putting a ribbon down Government is somehow going to magically change the place into a successful center they are dreaming. Heck even Loveday was all excited about the urban precinct of Govt St, he has no idea about the rents paid there, the impact of focusing attention on 3 blocks to the detriment of other areas of the town etc.

 

How does a ribbon impact business on Fort St? Pandora? Store? All those areas are congregation points for drugs, crime, panhandling, theft, vandalism etc. CoV is fiddling while the City is disintegrating and they think a few parklets, bike lanes, road closures and now a ribbon will make a difference....the financial survival of this city is not based on a few coffee shops and a couple of hipsters riding their bikes down to MEC and then to a pub for a craft brew.

 

The BC Govt just announce the opening of the Westshore workspace...its only the beginning and CoV did SFA to counter that except make it harder to commute from the outer communities to the core...they are being left behind and they dont have a clue. Apart from Young and Andrew the rest have no clue. What life experience do they bring to the table that they could apply to the economics of a City?

 

Not one of them would even get an interview for a management job in a private business and yet we entrust them with a several hundred million $ budget????

 

Are we insane?

[Nparker]

...the financial survival of this city is not based on a few coffee shops and a couple of hipsters riding their bikes down to MEC and then to a pub for a craft brew...

[Barrrister]

Rumour (unconfirmed at this point) is that MEC is looking to move, probably to West Shore when their lease is up. The new owners are pretty good business people.

[Nparker]

...What life experience do they bring to the table that they could apply to the economics of a City?...

If you offer enough (socially-distanced and consensual) hugs and apologies for one's great-great grandparents alleged wrongdoings, the economics will take care of themselves.

[Mike K.]

Rumour (unconfirmed at this point) is that MEC is looking to move, probably to West Shore when their lease is up. The new owners are pretty good business people.

You have got to be kidding me. Do we know any more on that front?

[Barrrister]

Sorry Mike heard that from a certain agent who is doing some scouting. I cannot verify this from corporate at this point. Will update but not a real surprise considering MEC balance sheet when they were bought. May be far from a done deal and truthfully I was a bit worried that they would close Victoria down altogether. 

Edited by Barrrister, 21 February 2021 - 10:30 AM.

[Mike K.]

Ok, I’ll see if I can dig any further into this.

[Rob Randall]

I think it still has to feel like a street. Bastion Square feels too much like a park. The buildings seem out of place, untethered, plunked around the perimeter. Almost like a theme park. 

[Mike K.]

Bastion Square is intimidating by night now; it becomes a dead zone after 5PM. There are multiple alleys leading into it and you have to watch your back, or at least you feel like there’s vulnerability there by night. When the nightclub operated there was a lot of activity in the evenings but now it’s a sketchy thoroughfare connecting Reeson Park and empty voids along the waterfront.

[Brantastic]

I live on Pandora, half a block from Our Place, and I walk around Downtown by myself day and night, everyday. I've never once had anything remotely close to resembling an assault or threat of violence. I have 7 other friends who live in the building, including several women in their early 20s. None of them have ever had a problem. What are we all doing differently? I've seen people having a mental health crisis, wandering around screaming, but it's the kind of thing you hear from a block away and can easily avoid. I'm not saying people haven't been assaulted Downtown, and we do clearly need to do more to deal with the problems that do exist, but I really don't agree that Downtown is so scary that it needs to be avoided at all costs. There are so many interesting shops and restaurants that you're missing out on and I think the supposed danger is overblown. I've had scarier experiences walking around outside of Downtown than I have in Downtown. To me, walking through Bastion Square at night feels so much safer than say, walking around Tillicum or along the Lochside Trail near Quadra/McKenzie at night.

[Brantastic]

I'm sorry, if anyone thinks that putting a ribbon down Government is somehow going to magically change the place into a successful center they are dreaming. Heck even Loveday was all excited about the urban precinct of Govt St, he has no idea about the rents paid there, the impact of focusing attention on 3 blocks to the detriment of other areas of the town etc.

 

How does a ribbon impact business on Fort St? Pandora? Store? All those areas are congregation points for drugs, crime, panhandling, theft, vandalism etc. CoV is fiddling while the City is disintegrating and they think a few parklets, bike lanes, road closures and now a ribbon will make a difference....the financial survival of this city is not based on a few coffee shops and a couple of hipsters riding their bikes down to MEC and then to a pub for a craft brew.

 

The ribbon thing is not actually happening. It's just a conceptual drawing of one way to reimagine the street. Aryze just drew it up to get people thinking outside the box, and said they aren't formally submitting their design. 

[On the Level]

I live on Pandora, half a block from Our Place, and I walk around Downtown by myself day and night, everyday. I've never once had anything remotely close to resembling an assault or threat of violence. I have 7 other friends who live in the building, including several women in their early 20s. None of them have ever had a problem. What are we all doing differently? I've seen people having a mental health crisis, wandering around screaming, but it's the kind of thing you hear from a block away and can easily avoid. I'm not saying people haven't been assaulted Downtown, and we do clearly need to do more to deal with the problems that do exist, but I really don't agree that Downtown is so scary that it needs to be avoided at all costs. There are so many interesting shops and restaurants that you're missing out on and I think the supposed danger is overblown. I've had scarier experiences walking around outside of Downtown than I have in Downtown. To me, walking through Bastion Square at night feels so much safer than say, walking around Tillicum or along the Lochside Trail near Quadra/McKenzie at night.

 

This poor fellow did our roof.  Stabbings and other assaults are becoming commonplace downtown.  That is why people don't want to go down there.  It's turning into a ghetto.  

 

 

“We were going from one bar to the next. We were both new to the area,” said Mackean, who just moved to Victoria a month ago. “We obviously went the wrong way and ended up in that Centennial Square.”

 

While walking through, he was attacked.

 

“It was out of nowhere. The guy pulled out a knife or a box cutter and went for my face or throat area, and I got my hands up and it cut straight across my wrist,” said Mackean recalling the night he and his friend were surrounded by a group of strangers.

 

With three slashed arteries and over 10 severed tendons, doctors told Mackean, who is a roofer, he may never work again.

 

https://www.cheknews...k-again-700058/

[Mike K.]

The most recent evening I was downtown, as I got off the bus there was a large group of youth excited about someone. It was the sort of pent up emotion before a brawl with people talking tough etc. Then later on VicPD put out a request for witnesses after an assault (stabbing?) in Bastion Square at the hands of a group of youth. The incident happened at around 6:30PM (they weren’t sure exactly when), right around the time I arrived downtown and saw that group.

Could it have been the same group? Maybe. But it was intimidating as heck standing at the light waiting to cross Douglas as the crowd was working itself up into a frenzy.

A week later there was that incident in Cenote where a man walked in, bit a patron and assaulted staff. When I was downtown on the night of the Bastion Square incident I was at Yates Taphouse across the street from Cenote so the immediate reaction was “wow, that could have easily been a week earlier, and at the place across the street where I was.”

So when former downtown residents and life long Victoria guys like me start to lose the feeling of safety, that hopefully resonates with officialdom. If not, well so be it. I’m going to do my part by keeping the pressure on and not allowing my voice to be disregarded as out of sync with someone else’s reality.

[spanky123]

I can't recall the last unprovoked serious injury or murder Downtown. You may have to remind me.

 

Hmm. Two weeks ago, Bastion Sq. Person stabbed, life altering injuries.

 

Thank goodness for social media or else you would never hear about it.

[Dexter]

You mean like the one Aryze already presented?

$20 says Aryze gets it and the rfp is just for the aura of transparency...

[Greg]

I was out downtown tonight, like I am most nights. Government Street, Bastion Square, Trounce Alley. Lot of people out. No issues.