City council attempts to make Vancouver a more fun city

There are two interesting motions going before council in Vancouver Tuesday, as the city tries to shake its reputation of being a little stuffy.

One is to allow more events to be held in so-called, non-traditional indoor spaces — think a warehouse, a factory, a studio, in offices, or at a retail store.

The idea, being brought forward by Couns. Sarah Kirby-Yung and Peter Meiszner, would allow the city to host more artistic events.

“Cultural spaces are essential. For any healthy, vibrant city to sustain and develop cultural vitality, artists and culture makers need access to affordable, diverse and safe venues to showcase their work and engage audiences. Enabling cultural spaces enables arts and cultural activities to thrive,” reads Kirby-Yung’s motion.

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This isn’t necessarily a totally new idea.

There was a two-year pilot program from 2013-2015 that saw more than 100 events take place in these kinds of spaces. The program was fully adopted in 2015 but only allowing two to three of these events every month, and this could change that.

“One of the most critical challenges facing arts and culture is the availability of affordable spaces and displacement of existing spaces due to accelerated development, rapidly rising industrial and commercial land values, and competition with higher land uses.

“Vancouver is effectively losing affordable places for artists to live, work, and share their work despite growth in the cultural non-profit sectors’ capacity to collaborate and develop co-located spaces and repurpose old buildings with new uses. The city’s arts and culture sector remains overwhelmingly vulnerable to displacement,” the motion continues.

City staff are being directed to review all relevant policies connected to this motion and to report back this June.

Groceries and wine in one sale?

The other motion involves booze.

Other cities around Metro Vancouver already do this, but Coun. Mike Klassen wants people to be able to buy B.C. wine from grocery stores, and only have to go through one check-out in the city.

Several years ago, the province changed the regulations around alcohol sales in grocery stores, and cities like Surrey, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, and North Vancouver, among others, all jumped on board, but Vancouver still has a “store within a store model.”

If this goes through, people would eventually be able to walk down the aisles, pick whatever they want, grab a bottle of wine, and go through just one cashier.

“The current provincial liquor regulations allow retailers to support local farmers without harming the interests of existing liquor retailers. In fact, ‘mom and pop’ liquor retailers often benefit from increased foot traffic as a result of their proximity to grocery stores given the restrictions surrounding the products grocery stores are allowed to offer on sale,” that motion states.

The motion states council hasn’t revisited the wine-on-shelf model for grocery stores in Vancouver in about six years.