Sean Bickerton

Mr. Mayor, Councillors, Dr. Ballem, City Staff and Concerned Residents of Vancouver:

My name is Sean Bickerton and I’m speaking today as President of Paris Place Strata, as a Director of the False Creek Residents Association and as one of the founding members of the Vancouver Not Vegas! coalition.

I would like to state on behalf of the members of the coalition that we fully respect the workers here tonight, their jobs and the heart-rending stories they have shared with us.

But i’m also wondering, as you must be, how a one-word footnote in an appendix of a 50-page report somehow morphed into the largest casino in Western Canada …

I’m also wondering how, like some creature from the movie Aliens, it managed to glom 0nto BC Place, our family-oriented sports stadium? We’ve recently learned that families and children will be banned from one of the main entrances to BC Place – an entrance paid for by the taxpayers of BC – because that once-public stadium entrance will be taken over by Paragon’s private new megacasino!

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In response to false challenges to my veracity by Paragon Gaming, and questions raised by Councillors Reimer, Meggs & Jang following my address to council last Monday, March 14, I have provided the following timeline of correspondence to Mayor and Council.

The correspondence was with Paragon Gambling Corp’s legal counsel George Cadman of Boughton Law Corporation, and their spokesperson, Tamara Hicks, in which I sought a meeting on behalf of the False Creek Residents Association to discuss community concerns regarding Paragon’s proposal to build a mega-casino at BC Place:

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On Monday I addressed Vancouver City Council during the third night of public hearings held to consider Paragon Gambling Corp’s massive megacasino proposed for downtown Vancouver. My presentation challenged some of the core economic assumptions the proponents have used in trying to sell their project to the city.

Councillor Deal asked for additional information in relation to my observation that approximately half of the casinos in the United States are in bankruptcy or receivership.

In response to the good councillor’s request, I spent a few hours perusing respected news journals, financial reports and court bankruptcy documents.  It is only partial and not meant to be comprehensive – I don’t have a city staff of 1000 to do my research - but it’s certainly representative. My brief research was limited to the past twelve months. There wasn’t time to include casino bankruptcies in 2009, a year that saw many others.

The result is a compilation of 50 major destination casinos across America that are in bankruptcy or receivership awash in billions of dollars of debt.

Unemployment in Las Vegas reached 15% last October and remains well above 13% today. And future prospects for the industry are worse, according to the chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, who reported on February 8 that “he expects more casino bankruptcies in the stagnant economy.”

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Paragon's River Cree Casino in downtown Edmonton, Alberta

Our paragon of a Premier and Paragon Gaming, a premier casino peddler, have decided to give Vancouver a great big gift!

If approved by City Council after public hearings this Thursday night, they will insert that huge gift-wrapped package right up Vancouver’s False Creek, depositing it right into the centre of our city.

It’s huge! It will be the largest casino in Western Canada, featuring more than 1,500 slot machines!

It will create jobs, we’re told! And provide buckets full of cash to local and provincial coffers!

Did I mention the jobs? Big jobs! Hundreds of them! Right here in the centre of our city! And in case I didn’t mention it, buckets full of cash for local and provincial coffers. What’s not to love?

Now, they say you should never look a gift horse in the mouth. So let’s just ignore the fact that the American company building this mega-casino in our city’s heart is not required to provide any local community amenities in violation of Vancouver development policy.

And we’ll ignore for now concerns about 25,000 of our fellow residents with compulsive gambling addictions. Next to a huge shiny new casino, those old bromides about being our brother’s keeper seem so old-fashioned, don’t they?

Did I mention the jobs?

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North East False Creek Development Sites

Last night, the City of Vancouver held public hearings on a proposal by Concord Pacific to develop Lot 5B West (see map to left).

The False Creek Residents Association brought out three dozen speakers from every neighbourhood in False Creek to speak to the amenity package proposed for that development. There were so many speakers that Council had to extend the hearing until 11pm, but still had to refer more than eighteen speakers to Monday night.

It was the position of the FCRA to reject the amenity package proposed for the development outright in favor of an amendment we submitted last night (see Amendment 4.6 below.)

9.06 acre Creekside Park promised to Vancouver in 1990

The amendment calls for immediate transfer of Creekside Park’s future home on Lot 9 from Concord to the province for $1, as will have to happen eventually; immediate greening of that site with a foot of soil covered with lawn; and relocation of all of Concord’s commercial activities (such as Cirque du Soleil, etc.) to their own commercially zoned 6c South.

My remarks to council follow, as does our suggested amendment. Please click here to view video of the hearing – my brief remarks begin at 3:08, and then questions from councillors continue until 3:32 pm.

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Last night, February 1, Councillor Woodsworth’s motion passed with overwhelming support. There were a number of amendments and revisions and I’ll publish the final result as soon as it’s available.

But the result is unmistakable – a call for a review of gambling in the province and a refusal to rubber-stamp casino expansion until the contractual rights and interests of charities and non-profits to a share of gaming funds are protected.

When three of us first met last November to begin building opposition to this casino, we were told there was no point because the casino was a done deal, that whatever the Premier wanted, he got.

Last night, thanks to Councillor Woodsworth’s initiative, we played a small part in helping demonstrate Margaret Meade’s dictum in its purest form: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

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Madam Chair, Mr. Mayor, Councillors, Staff and Guests:

I speak to you today as the President of the Paris Place Strata Council and as a resident of the International Village on the proposed study to examine bringing down the Georgia Street and Dunsmuir Viaducts.

Forty years ago, a misguided government of the day built those viaducts in an attempt to remake Vancouver into Los Angeles, destroying Hogan’s Alley - Vancouver’s historic black community – in the process and walling off Chinatown from growth and from the rest of the city.

Today we’re finally contemplating the correction of that ancient mistake and in so doing see the possibility of re-integrating a long-neglected neighbourhood into the traffic grid and the downtown core of the city.

Photo: Tom Hudock

I pass under those viaducts almost every day on my way to walk on the seawall. The space underneath is dead, littered with needles and the broken glass of too many car break-ins to count. The vacant lots beneath the viaducts sit empty most of the time, used sporadically for temporary parking, junk storage, as public latrines and far worse.

Put very simply, dead streets are not safe streets.

Seattle’s tearing down their viaducts, as are cities across North America including Toronto, Montreal, Boston and San Francisco among others. And during the Olympics, we learned we could live without them too.

For all these reasons and more, back in January, I issued a New Year’s greeting to friends and supporters calling for the viaducts to come down and a 1000 parks to bloom in their place.

I received a number of unhappy calls as a result …

Hogan's Alley, Vancouver's historic Black village

But I’m here today to support this study as a resident of the area and on behalf of my strata because I believe it’s the right thing to do for my neighbourhood and our city.

To ensure that this works for everyone, though, care must be taken to ensure that Strathcona and the neighbourhoods along Pacific are not inundated with diverted traffic while Georgia Street traffic flows are accommodated. This study is crucial therefore to be sure this step can improve the quality of life for everyone in the areas affected.

But more than just a study of the viaducts in isolation, we need a comphrehensive, integrated plan that encompasses all of the changes and needs currently facing this dynamic area of the city.

First, this study should address solutions to deliver Creekside Park in the context of all the new development in Northeast False Creek. I find it greatly encouraging that the planned study will examine new technologies and scientific research on remediation, which may well solve the current impasse on remediating soils on Lot 6c – the challenge holding up delivery of Creekside Park on Lot 9.

Photo: Tom Hudock

We are facing an estimated increase in population around False Creek of nearly 25,000 new residents and need park space and recreational and cultural amenities commensurate with that increase.

Tom and I lived in Manhattan for twenty years and loved that dense, vibrant environment. One of the things that makes it possible to live there is the huge park easily accessible in the centre of the city – Central Park – and all of the large neighbourhood parks and pocket parks scattered across the city. As we grow, we will need the same.

Other issues need to be addressed.

The Dragonboat Festival needs a new home. The Sun Yat-Sen garden celebrates their 25th anniversary next year, yet they lost a crucial tour bus stop in the construction of the Carrall Street Greenway, and want to open the garden to the south. A massive and ugly casino is proposed that offers no amenities to the community and no funding to the arts. Why should anyone support that zoning change?

And many are concerned that the Great Wall of viaducts currently isolating Chinatown is not simply replaced with a Great Wall of towers that do the same thing. Development in proportion to new park and recreational opportunities is called for.

We have an opportunity to plan an entire community and I hope this viaduct study will lead to that more comprehensive neighbourhood plan with full public input and participation.

Thank you.

Mayor Robertson at UFC Press Conference Day Before Fight

The UFC came to Vancouver on Saturday, flooding the International Village with drunk fans most of that sunny afternoon and long into the night.

Their cries from the street were audible from our apartment from noon onward. Roving gangs of intoxicated young men menaced residents and created an atmosphere of drunken lawlessness in our streets.

I know of four separate incidents involving confrontations between drunk fans and residents of the area – people pushed off sidewalks, confronted, anger when someone refused a high-five, a mother and baby hassled, etc., in addition to the horrific gay-bashing of our good friends that night.

We’re used to the boisterous noise of passionate hockey fans and other sports, win and lose, and we’ve enjoyed and celebrated right along with them. And we’ve seen far larger crowds throughout the Olympics.

But the UFC atmosphere of drunken menace on our streets Saturday was clearly palpable and something very different.

Making matters worse, we didn’t have the visible police presence normal for large major sporting events, and that lack of visible uniforms on the street proved provocative to alcohol-addled, violence-prone males freely using our public streets as urinals and intent on trouble.

Glorifying UFC Violence In Front of Vancouver Art Gallery

That menace metastasized Saturday night into a violent, hate-filled gay-bashing against two residents of our community, who were left beaten, bruised, and suffering from concussions, one with staples in his skull to bind together the wounds he suffered.

This horrific attack occurred two blocks from the UFC event at 10:45 pm after a day of the same kinds of drunken behaviour, evidence enough of the violent atmosphere the UFC created in our neighbourhood.

Mayor Robertson lobbied very hard and publicly for this event, and attended the fight, yet unfortunately did not provide the necessary police presence or security for the residents of the area who warned of just this kind of violence in opposing the license.

According to The Province:

In Robertson, the UFC has an unlikely champion. And if you doubted that for a moment, you just had to listen to its president, Dana White, as he cheerfully lauded hizzoner for his work in securing Saturday’s card for GM Place.

“There were a lot of people who were instrumental in bringing this here,” said White, during a wildly entertaining presser at the Canucks’ home on Thursday.

“But there was one man who — when it came to the last minute and looked like it wasn’t going to happen — pulled the trigger, killed it and made it happen.”

Which, given the UFC’s image in some sectors, was an interesting choice of words. But even if Robertson might have expressed it differently, he wasn’t exactly trying to distance himself from White or his organization.

“My sense is they’re interested in doing more events in Vancouver,” Robertson said afterwards.

“We’re certainly interested in hosting more events. It’s likely we’re going to see more events in the next two years.”

Today on CKNW and in The Vancouver Sun,  our Mayor stated that the event went smoothly and incredibly stated he’s looking forward to the next fight. He also mentioned the fighting got a little rough, neglecting to mention it sent five fighers to the hospital – but he was glad it was in a safe environment and not on the streets …

But it did spill out onto the streets.

So the Mayor has a special responsibility to answer for the abdication of his prime responsibility to maintain public order after approving the most violent spectactor event in the city’s recent history.

The Mayor had plenty of security inside the stadium protecting him. We understand the place was flooded with plainclothed anti-gang officers. Yet where were the provisions to protect the residents forced to play host to the gangs of intoxicated “fans?”

Not making sure there was a strong, visible presence was a mistake. And because of that mistake, there will not be another UFC event in this neighbourhood again.

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UPDATE I

I’m not casting any blame on the police, who did an extraordinary job under far harder circumstances throughout the Olympics and for the many other large events we’ve hosted over the past two years. Those that promoted this event had the responsibility for ensuring a safe environment not just for their guests but for their neighbours.

We took a walk around the False Creek Seawall on Saturday, eager to see the now-completed Athlete’s Village and how they’ve fixed everything up along the seawall to welcome the world.

But the condition of the seawall in North East False Creek hasn’t improved. It’s still a small strip of dilapidated asphalt bordered by sections of rusty chain link fence at each end, and there is a lot of litter along the way.

Instead of the new landscaping we expected to see, Concord has sprayed a soylent green all over the bordering dirt and grass. God only knows what it’s leaching into False Creek. That plastic spray-lawn may be green in colour, but it’s anything but a green welcome to the world’s athletes and media.

Soylent Green?

(More photographs available here.)

Concord has had twenty years to complete that section of the seawall, yet it still isn’t finished. It’s very narrow compared to the rest of the wall, and there’s no separate bike lane despite repeated requests. The large crowds spread across the entire width of the walkway are clearly frustrating the cyclists that usually tear past.

Is this really the best we can do to welcome the world to our city? Is this the best we can do for the residents who live in this community? It’s not that Concord has done nothing. They have. They took away everything in their storage yard adjacent to BC Place referred to by many as an industrial junkyard. It was removed at taxpayer expense, mind you, and they’ve vowed to bring it all back again after the Olympics are gone, but still, they did do that.

And they’ve sprayed seawall borders with that green, lawn-like substance, and put up large, bright, colourful banners advertising condo towers on the very site they promised to develop into Creekside Park. They’ve also done that.

Condos Instead of Creekside Park. What kind of Vision is that?

But the rest of the city looks great. It’s a shame that this is the section of seawall the world’s athletes, their families and media have to walk past every day.