A new (legal) business is in the works for 920 Pandora

The Week - April 2

Get on the good-times bus

A local limousine operator is primed to provide a late-night shuttle service to clear the downtown core of revellers after nightspots close their doors.

Ranjit Thind of Arbutus Limousine told Monday that, starting April 2, he’ll be running a 20-passenger mini-bus from in front of the Strathcona Hotel on Douglas to UVic’s Student Union Building starting at 10 p.m. and on into the wee hours. He hopes to make a circuit through the core, picking up riders along the way in both directions.

He says one bus could be just the start.

“After the bar rush, if there is a demand, I will put two or three buses on and I can clean up downtown within an hour instead of there being such a mess of people running around the pizza shops and doing stupid stuff,” Thind told Monday in an interview.

“With this service we will be able to accommodate a large volume of passengers who ultimately might make the wrong decision to drive home while intoxicated,” Thind wrote in a subsequent press release.

He intends to charge $5 for the service and hopes that the pubs and clubs will promote him as an affordable alternative to taxis.

Meanwhile, up at UVic, officials there say they have yet to hear from Thind about his plan, and concerns the University expressed last year when the idea was first floated remain unresolved.

“We’re really concerned about the service bringing a whole series of intoxicated people late at night and dropping them on campus,” UVic associate vice-president academic and student affairs Jim Anglin told Monday.

So what would Anglin propose?

“I think the real answer is to extend the B.C. Transit service and both the student society and ourselves have been advocating for that for some time,” he says.

Around the media world

The nation tuned in last week to hear what cost-cutting measures the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation would take to stay afloat in the face of declining advertising revenue and withering government support. This week, local CBC Radio station manager Peter Hutchinson told Monday the Pandora Street office will escape the axe.

Hutchinson—who conveniently was on vacation when the cost-cutting announcement was made—says all jobs at the Victoria outlet will be spared, and since the Mother Corp only leases its Pandora Avenue location, it won’t have to worry about a for- sale sign sprouting on the lawn.

Hutchinson admits plenty of unknowns remain.

“There are some big unanswered questions in there, like can they sell the assets they’re planning to sell for the money they’re planning to raise, and will advertising revenue pick up again in that period?—so who knows,” he says.

And then there are future budget considerations for the Victoria outpost.

“We don’t know yet what spending restraints we may face,” says Hutchinson. “I don’t know yet what my programming budget will be for the next year.”

Meanwhile, over in the print media world, rumours continue that the venerable Times Colonist may cease publication of its Monday edition.

Victoria-Vancouver Island Newspaper Guild president Chris Caloran says the union hasn’t heard anything to confirm the rumour and for the moment it’s business as usual for employees of Victoria’s daily.

“As per our contract language, we must be notified of any change in status and that hasn’t happened,” says Caloran.

He means business

It’s refreshing to see some local business folk ignore the never-ending laments about our downtown woes and put their money where their mouth is to show they believe in this city.

Take Cosmo Meens, owner of Mo:Le restaurant, who, with his business partners, has been busy readying a space at 920 Pandora Avenue for his new Village Family Market Place, a storefront that will showcase all the best Vancouver Island-produced foods there are to offer.

920 Pandora, for those not geographically inclined, is directly across the street from the Our Place drop-in centre and adjacent to the Ministry of Housing and Social Development office, the front steps of which have recently become ground-zero for scoring any number of soul-sucking substances.

“First of all, I have the belief that Victoria is such a tight little package that there’s a lot of workable space that is sometimes regarded as unsavoury, and it’s only because it’s not being utilized properly,” Meens told Monday. “When we opened Mo:Le just about five years ago—I don’t know if you recall—but it was quite similar to this area, and I got a lot of the same type of response that I’m getting now to my choice of location, but the idea is just that if you really have something that is of value, and of high enough integrity, it’s a small enough city that you’re not really going to be cast out.”

Talking harm reduction

Speaking of Pandora Avenue and its, um, colourful denizens, AIDS Vancouver Island and the B.C. Centre for Addictions Research are co-hosting a forum called “More than just needles” on April 7 to discuss how harm reduction services contribute to healthy communities.

The timing is appropriate, given that it’s almost one year since the city—through an impressive display of dithering—lost its fixed-site needle exchange and the number of syringes distributed and collected by the various groups providing stopgap services remains well below the numbers distributed and collected prior to closure of the Cormorant Street site.

AIDS Vancouver Island executive director Katrina Jensen says that while stakeholders are now looking to implement a decentralized needle exchange model where assorted health and social service providers are able to distribute clean needles, the search continues for a permanent home as a base of operations. The absence of one, says Jensen, may contribute to increased health risks for the intravenous drug-using population and the general public.

“We’ve seen that access to other services such as street nurses and access to counsellors has dropped significantly,” she says. “People report feeling a real sense of disconnection from services in general as a result of the fixed site not being available any more.”

Meanwhile, among other subjects, Dr. Thomas Kerr of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV-AIDS—and a panelist at the April 7 talk—will touch on safe consumption sites as part of the harm reduction continuum.

“If you’re someone who doesn’t like seeing drug users and drug-related litter, and you’re unhappy about that, then what you should be advocating for is a supervised injection facility, because it will bring this activity indoors, under the supervision of health care professionals and will help reduce the drug-related litter and other types of public disorder on the streets.

“More than just needles” takes place April 7 from 6-8:30 p.m. at the Ambrosia Centre at 638 Fisgard.

Monster marina

As Monday reported in February, local lawyer and finger-in-many-pies kind of guy Bruce Hallsor is registered with the federal government as a lobbyist for the WAM Development Group with respect to the Victoria International Marina and Yacht Club—that’s the mega-yacht parking lot slated for the Upper Harbour. We asked Hallsor this week what exactly he’s been lobbying for.

“My role with the Port Victoria Marina is that of a legal advisor,” he told Monday via e-mail. “[. . .]Because I am an active Conservative, and I knew that my client would be seeking federal approvals, I registered with the lobbyist registry out of an abundance of caution, because I did not want to inadvertently run afoul of the act.”

Both Hallsor and marina proponent Bob Evans have been involved with the Saanich-Gulf Islands Conservative Party Riding Association.

“I have, on [the proponents’] behalf, written letters and made representations to federal transport officials, including [then-transport minister] Lawrence Canon. I have also spoken about the project to Gary Lunn on a casual basis,” wrote Hallsor. “I have never had a specific brief to go and lobby the federal government.”