Following a downtown Vancouver convenience store’s move to start locking up beverages to discourage theft, a busy chain restaurant in Chinatown has removed most of the furniture from its dining area.
It’s standing room only in much of the busy Tim Hortons on Keefer Street after the coffee shop recently removed tables and chairs.
“I wasn’t really surprised,” customer Sasha Van Beek told Global News Tuesday. “Sometimes if the homeless people are there they won’t get customers so they probably took them out just to try to get customers again.”
“It’s just another way to keep people out you know, and keep them moving,” added customer Raven Stephenson.
Stephenson said the location is often one of the only places in the area open late, and it’s warm and dry.
“A lot of stores fall into the trap of blaming people instead of the poverty that’s created down here and supported down here,” said Stephenson, referring to the Downtown Eastside.
“I don’t blame them, I really don’t,” Jonathan Kuiack told Global News Tuesday.
Kuiack said he is one of several people who hold the door open for Tim Hortons’ customers – in an effort to earn some spare change.
He said it’s hard to get into shelters and he understands why the restaurant would remove tables.
“Because people come in there and they sleep in there,” Kuiack said in an interview. “Just (misuse) the place right because there (are) a lot of homeless people down here.”
Elsewhere in the city, businesses are implementing drastic anti-theft measures.
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The 7-11 store at Hornby and Davie Streets has locked up their soft drink and dairy fridges along with cough drops, Q-tips and cables so anyone wanting one of these items now has to ask the clerk for help.
Some gas stations are even removing squeegees from the washer fluid bins.
In recent weeks, signs were posted near the pumps at the Shell location on Main Street at East 2nd Avenue, advising customers to ask inside for a squeegee.
Global News reached out to Shell Canada Tuesday regarding the squeegee situation, and to see if any other B.C. locations had removed the wiper tools.
The oil company did not respond to our inquiry by deadline and by Tuesday afternoon, squeegees were again in place at every gas pump at 1785 Main Street.
An employee who answered the phone Tuesday said the squeegees “used to be inside but now they’re outside”.
Greg Wilson with the Retail Council of Canada said another retailer advised him they also removed squeegees because they are being stolen.
“The assumption is they are taken for use to earn money at a nearby major intersection,” Wilson said.
Retail strategist David Ian Gray believes we will see more of this in “at-risk” areas – at least until the theft problem begins to recede to prior levels.
“In the past, there might have been (a) reluctance to create friction for ‘good’ customers but this is becoming normalized now,” Gray told Global News.
The fear that one will lose customers with anti-theft measures is dropping Gray said, while the fear that more and more inventory will be stolen is rising.
Gray noted downtown Seattle is worse while major retailers have abandoned downtown San Francisco.
Wilson also expects more extreme measures are in store as businesses try to combat not only shoplifting, but increased violence.
“Chairs and tables can be thrown,” Wilson told Global News in an interview Tuesday. “Items that are heavy and can be used as weapons, thrown either at windows or at staff are problems.”
Wilson said he recently learned sidewalk signs are being picked up and tossed at the windows of smaller retailers while hand-held grocery baskets are thrown at employees or windows.
The Retail Council said Vancouver Police have had very successful retail theft blitzes such as shoplifting crackdowns, and it would like to see the province fund a permanent VPD retail crime unit.
“As a lifelong Vancouverite, I’ve always looked at downtown Vancouver as a very safe place and I hope that that’s what we return to,” Wilson said. “But at the moment, there’s just too much crime.”
Global News reached out to Tim Hortons regarding the missing furniture at its Vancouver Chinatown location.
The company did not respond to our requests although some tables and chairs have since reappeared.
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