Barber shop that left Chinatown due to crime destroyed in suspicious Vancouver fire

The owner of a Vancouver barber shop who moved out of Chinatown due to street crime is now facing a major setback.

Bootleg Barbers was one of several businesses destroyed by a suspicious fire on Hastings Street near Nanaimo Street last week.

1:27 Suspicious fire damages Hastings businesses

Owner Dustin Grant said a friend called him early last Wednesday to warn him the iconic Dayton Boots store, where his shop is located, was on fire.

“It was crazy, there must have been 10 fire trucks, 40 or 50 firemen,” he said.

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“I was thinking that everything I had built over the last 12 and a half years was going up in smoke right in front of my face.”

Grant had just moved the business back to the Hastings Street location in December, after a two-year stint in Chinatown, where he had hoped to help revitalize the neighbourhood.

He decided to move out of that neighbourhood because clients told him they no longer felt safe in the area.

But establishing his new shop in the Dayton building wasn’t cheap — requiring about $15,000 in renovations, he said.

1:43 Fire destroys three Vancouver businesses, including the iconic Dayton Boots

While he has since heard the building won’t be torn down, all of his recent efforts have been lost.

“I had to physically build the shop; it was just an empty factory when I moved in, so I had to put all of the walls in, all of the electrical, all of the plumbing, and then the paint and the finishings,” he said.

“So many antique items and pieces of art are going to be impossible to replace … antique barber chairs, all of my electronics and my antique barber pole, some hand-made artwork, signage.”

Grant said he is one of just a half-dozen other small business operators, artisans and musicians who were displaced by the fire.

Vancouver police say the fire, which ignited around 4 a.m. on April 23, is suspicious and may have been deliberately set.

Investigators have yet to thoroughly examine the site, however, saying the buildings are still not safe for entry.

In the meantime, Grant has secured chair space at another barbershop in Main Street so that he can continue working.

‘Right now I am just happy to have a place to work and where my clients can come to get their hair cut,” he said.