DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
Tensions rise in Strathcona Park
In the wake of a giant homeless camp at Strathcona Park, things have got a little crazy in my neighbourhood.
You may have heard about Vancouver
city councillor Pete Fry’s confrontation with a guy who yelled obscenities at and threatened a woman who asked him not to shoot up drugs on her neighbour’s steps. The guy threatened to stab him, but Fry stood his ground and chased him off.
You probably haven’t heard about another Strathcona resident who noticed a woman squatting in his front yard to urinate. When he rapped on the window, she looked at him, gave him the finger and continued to do her business.
Then there’s the daily count of used needles outside a child care centre near a Strathcona elementary school. One day there were 55; the day before I wrote this, it was 30.
Strathcona is next door to the troubled Downtown Eastside. Essentially, parts of Strathcona have imported many of the woes of Hastings Street.
But guess what seems to be the issue that the City of Vancouver cares about most?
Keeping off-leash dogs out of MacLean Park at 8:30 a.m., when the park is virtually empty.
MacLean is the neighbourhood’s favourite green space, a city block of grass carved out of the ’hood by knocking down a bunch of houses and apartment blocks in the 1960s. They had to create a new park because the original MacLean Park was filled in with social housing.
The city’s dog inspectors have put a full court-press on MacLean Park for a few months now. I’ve lived in Strathcona for 30 years, and honestly, I’ve never seen the city throw so many resources into the area. But just to stamp out off-leash dogs, not to deal with issues related to the homeless camp.
Alas, I made the mistake of arguing with some of the dog inspectors one day. I gave them my Vancouver Sun card, asking that somebody phone me about the issue. No one has ever phoned, but someone did drop a letter through the door saying I had to buy a licence for my dog.
Bernadette the St. Bernard is actually a friend’s dog that I look after sometimes, but I bought the licence — it’s no big deal. Then, a couple of days later, I got another notice pushed through the mail slot, saying people who let their dog off-leash in certain parks could face fines of $250-$10,000.
That’s right — you face a potential $10,000 fine for having your dog off-leash. Who knew?
As it happened, when they dropped off the notice, I was on the phone to Terri Clark, former communications manager for the Vancouver park board. When I told her what was happening she said: “That’s harassment!” It is, but what can you do? From a dog owner’s standpoint, the city’s dog inspectors are hell-bent on keeping neighbourhood residents from socializing with their dogs for a few minutes before work each morning. Even though I doubt anybody is complaining at 8:30 a.m. Neighbourhood parks could all be off-leash before 10 a.m., when kids start to show up.
Most of the dog owners wound up taking their dogs over to Strathcona Park, which has an off-leash area. But then somebody trucked in the homeless camp by U-Haul from its previous location on the Gastown waterfront.
To be honest, initially Strathcona Park didn’t seem to be a bad place for the camp. The original 33 tents were able to set up by trees for cover and spread out for social distancing. Many Strathcona residents are sympathetic to the homeless.
But there seems to be a cycle for homeless camps. If you allow them to set up, they quickly grow, and a criminal element moves in. Before you know it, you have guys from the homeless camp turning a sheltered area that elderly Chinese ladies usually use for tai chi into a bicycle chop shop, taking apart stolen bikes to resell on the black market.
According to the city’s dog bylaw, dog owners can be fined $10,000 if their dog is caught in a sports field. The problem at Strathcona Park is that you have to cross a sports field to get to the off-leash area — and one day Bernadette and her tiny pal Lola started chasing each other around a baseball infield. That’s potentially a $20,000 fine. Surely no one at the city has been crazy enough to ever hand out such a penalty, but another dog owner was warned when he walked his dog across the baseball field. And he lives on Prior Street, across from the park.
The irony in all this is that some of the homeless squatters have now set up tents on the sports fields. Some of them don’t like dogs — one guy threatened a dog owner with a crowbar because his dog’s barking woke him up. Another small dog was stolen by one of the campers — luckily, his owner was able to get him back. But a second dog that went missing hasn’t been found.
Still, the city and park board really don’t seem to be in any big hurry to deal with the homeless camp. It will probably be there for months, unless the province steps in.
Many dog owners are now avoiding Strathcona Park because it’s just too nuts. Bernadette gets a daily ride in the VW convertible to the dog beach by the Maritime Museum in Kits. She’s kind of mystified when it’s time to leave. If it were up to her, we’d stay forever.