Two Vancouver nightclub owners struggling to survive amid a ‘flood’ of problems are seeking compensation in the form of rent relief from the provincial government, claiming their extensive, ongoing losses and damages have been caused by policies that moved people from encampments into the Granville Entertainment District during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Within a 36-hour period between Friday, April 18 and Saturday, April 19, Alan Goodall said his bar was subject to four separate floods from the former Howard Johnson hotel at 1176 Granville Street.
The final deluge occurred at 11:30 p.m. on the club’s busiest night of the week, forcing Goodall to mop the floor of his VIP section during operating hours.
“Those two tables, they’re our best tables on a Saturday night, prime time, and they were unusable,” said Goodall, adding that most people don’t understand nightclubs have a very small window to make all the money for the month.
“If you take away two of those hours, or three of those hours because of flooding, it affects you.”
Goodall’s nightclub, Aura, is the ground-level tenant in the building purchased by BC Housing for $55 million in June 2020 to house residents who’d previously lived in encampments at Strathcona and Oppenheimer Parks.
“I’ve been dealing with the residents flooding my business for five years now,” said Goodall, who estimates he’s dealt with more than 200 floods since the Howard Johnson became supportive housing.
The most recent flood occurred Friday afternoon around the back bar area, hours before Aura was set to open its doors for the night.
“We’ve both suffered multi-six-figure damages,” Cabana nightclub owner Dave Kershaw told Global News.
Across the street from Aura, Kershaw said his bar is also getting inundated by the B.C.-government-owned St. Helen’s Hotel at 1161 Granville Street.
Kershaw said his club has been hit with approximately one dozen water incidents since March, one of which was a fire which set off sprinklers and flooded his VIP room and back stairwell.
Some of the damage is latent, he said, as water seeps through the flooring and is only discovered when the floor starts to lift weeks later.
Kershaw said he’s had to close his VIP section for six weeks to repair soaked flooring.
In another chaotic incident, a bucket of human feces came out of a window of the St. Helen’s and landed on Cabana’s AC unit, he said, forcing more repairs.
“The constant leaking, the open drug use, things being flung from windows to the street onto customers — that never happened up (until) 2020,” said Kershaw.
Statistics provided by Vancouver Fire Rescue Services (VFRS) show calls to the former Howard Johnson hotel jumped 157 per cent, from 91 in 2020, to 234 in 2024.
While calls to the St. Helen’s Hotel went down slightly in 2022 and 2024, they still increased from 40 in 2020 to 329 last year, a 722.5 per cent spike.
VFRS said it does not track flooding, however, if sprinklers are activated, they would be called for an alarm-activated call or fire.
It added that it has been working with BC Housing to reduce the number of fires and alarms in these two buildings.
Citing ongoing challenges, the bar owners are seeking immediate rent relief from BC Housing for the remainder of 2025.
“We think it would be fair and then moving forward, some sort of reduction in our rent rates to reflect the environment that has been created by moving people from encampments up to Granville Street,” said Kershaw. “We’re asking them to do the right thing, what we’re asking for is not unreasonable, it’s not crazy.”
“In terms of compensation, I’m not even really sure what it is, but it’s a lot,” added Goodall. “I’ve dealt with a lot.”
When asked if he agreed these businesses should be compensated for losses and damages caused by provincial government policies, B.C.’s housing minister did not directly answer.
“I know it’s a challenge for those businesses, but we also ensure that dollars are spent to fix them up when there’s a flood,” Ravi Kahlon told Global News in an interview.
“BC Housing works with our partners to go in and fix that flood. I know that these businesses also have their own insurance to ensure that if they’re impacted by fire and flood, that they’re covered.”
That answer got a cool reception from the club operators.
“With 200 floods, I can’t make 200 claims,” Goodall responded. “There’s no way that anybody would insure me.”
When pressed on whether there’s a realization this situation is different than just a normal flood and is caused by policy decisions rather than a faulty water pump, Kahlon said he disagreed.
“Well, not necessarily, you can have floods in any building, in fact, we see floods and fires in buildings unfortunately across the province, and it’s not linked to a specific population,” the housing minister said. “This is a specific challenge, we acknowledge there was a flood and BC Housing’s taking steps to fix that flood with partnership of the business owner.”
Goodall acknowledged BC Housing has stepped up to fix some of the issues, including repairing his dance floor ceiling, which he said restoration crews had previously warned could collapse at any point.
The entire ceiling had to be ripped out and fully replaced, he said, leaving 50 employees out of work without any advance notice, as the club was closed and under heavy construction for 16 days last month.
“It was probably a $200,000 job, and that was the result of one resident setting off their sprinkler heads twice within a three-week period,” said Goodall.
Since June 2020, BC Housing has spent a total of $2.59 million on building repairs and remediation. $1.87 million at the Luugat or former Howard Johnson and about $729,000 at the St. Helen’s Hotel.
The work, said BC Housing, includes water damage and flooding repairs, fire restoration, elevator repairs, and securing life safety features such as alarms, security cameras or sprinklers.
“We have been working closely with Atira, Community Impact Real Estate Society (CIRES) and the owners of Aura nightclub to address any damage related to building operations at Luugat,” said BC Housing in an emailed statement.
“To keep spending a ton of money on restoration, to put a Band-Aid on it doesn’t make any sense,” said Kershaw. “They need to address the root of the problem, which is the people in these units now need a higher level of care than what they’re getting, which is they’re not getting any care, they’ve been put into a room.”
“These floods aren’t stopping,” said Goodall. “I’ve had three of my ceilings cave in. When’s the next ceiling going to cave in?”
Contractors are currently tearing out the ceiling above Aura’s VIP bar, after Goodall said the area sustained heavy flooding on May 27 as a result of sprinkler heads being set off in the room above.
Extensive mould was discovered once the damaged ceiling was opened up, he said.
Despite the ongoing setbacks, Goodall and Kershaw said relocation is not an option because moving a nightclub and primary liquor licence is a multi-seven-figure undertaking, with no revenue during the construction to approval process, if you get approved.
Kershaw has owned Cabana since 2010, while Goodall has been in his space for 16 years.
Both have battled adversity – including surviving the COVID-19 pandemic – and are committed to seeing Granville Street revived as an entertainment destination.
“It’s in my blood to do whatever I can to fight for my business,” said Goodall. “It’s my baby and I’ve been here a long time.”
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