I took family and extended family downtown to do our annual walk of gingerbread houses at Laurel Point, then over to Hotel Grand Pacific for the teddy bears, then the Empress for trees, then up to the Bay Centre for more trees.
We took in local shops, and did what we do every day — promote Victoria as the best place in Earth.
I was let down. The downtown experience has decayed. There was an unbelievable number of invasive and aggressive panhandlers, open smoking of dope and injecting, two fights, and sidewalks being taken up with sleeping bags, loitering and camping. We had to cancel the rest of our downtown wandering because our company was simply not comfortable.
I am tired, absolutely tired, that our city is left to this zombie apocalypse. This does nothing for our taxpaying citizens, visitors or shop owners. I don’t care if it’s a banner year for everyone — we need to get our streets back. The city needs to act immediately on this. I encourage the mayor and council to read Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point and the excerpt on how New York took its subways back.
Just because, through complacency, you have not noticed how bad it is, venture out and listen to the citizens and the shop owners, or better, the many people who won’t go downtown because of this.
Derek Sanderson
Victoria
