Pidgin protests mirror much frustration

More than two weeks after the Pidgin protest started, the large glass windows of the Downtown Eastside restaurant that overlook Pigeon Park have been frosted.

Anti-gentrification protesters said the windows, which had afforded diners clear views of the drug-dealing and poverty in the triangular concrete park across the street, were tacky.

They had shone flashlights through the glass, prompting owner Brandon Grossutti to block them out to protect his guests – first, using paper, then, the frosted windows.

“We didn’t want to do this,” he said Thursday. “It defeats the purpose of why we are here in the first place. It creates this insular environment – not respecting or recognizing where you are is part of the problem.”

Protesters have fixated on Grossutti’s fledging eatery as a symbol of encroaching gentrification in the low-income neighbourhood.

They come five days a week, twice a day, carrying placards that say: “Social housing now,” and “Feed the hungry, eat the rich.”

They said they will continue with the almost-daily demonstrations until gentrification halts or the restaurant shuts down.

“It’s never going to happen,” said Grossutti. “They don’t have a hope in hell of closing this restaurant.”

Grossutti said there is little he can do to stop the protests, but is organizing a roundtable next week with some Downtown Eastside community leaders to see what they can do to improve the community.

“I will sit down in a roundtable, without media, and have a conversation about solutions. If people are willing to talk about solutions, and how we can benefit this neighbourhood, I welcome everyone at that table.”

Protesters argue that the new condos, restaurants and stores coming into the Downtown Eastside drive up property values, decrease affordable housing stock, and drive out low-income people who have lived there for years.

“We’re drawing a line in the sand,” said a man formerly known as Homeless Dave (he has recently moved into a BC Housing unit), who organizes the protests.

“We are past the saturation point for retail and condo gentrification.”

Ivan Drury of the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) said the protest is a product of long-term community frustration bubbling over.

Drury said the harmful gentrification that started with the opening of the Woodward’s building is creating a “crisis of displacement” in the neighbourhood, which if left unchecked will become “a massive crisis of homelessness.”

Fellow protester Wendy Pedersen, a former CCAP member, admitted the protest might turn other people off their cause.

“It’s partly effective, and partly not. It doesn’t feel good being here. We risk turning the public against us, but it is the right thing to do,” she said, comparing their rally to the sit-ins against racial segregation in U.S. diners in the 1960s.

Pedersen said they have many supporters. Many others, however, are against their tactics.

“I think you’re absolutely out to lunch on this,” said Cynthia Crampton, who was walking down Carrall Street during a noon protest, to Pedersen. “I see you as people who just want to keep people down.”

Crampton agreed with Pedersen it would be nice to see more social or co-op housing in the Downtown Eastside, but said the protest was misdirected.

“If this place is open right now, I’d go in and have lunch.”