They turned out in droves to protest a restaurant named after a man they call a terrorist.
And it all happened on the opening day for Escobar, a Fraser Street restaurant named for the Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, whose name is synonymous with killings and fear.
Dozens of protesters stood outside the restaurant on Friday, waving placards urging people to boycott the business and saying that “terrorism is not ‘entertainment.'”
“This past week I’ve come to realize that in Vancouver, there is a lot of people that are here just because they were forced to leave Colombia because of the terrorism that Pablo Escobar caused,” Adriana Contreras, a Colombian-Canadian cultural worker, told Global News.
Escobar’s name is tied irrevocably to a drug war that raged in Colombia for many years, and he has been linked to as many as 5,500 killings that happened when his drug operations were at their peak.
READ MORE: Vancouver’s new resto Escobar blasted for name shared with notorious cocaine kingpin
The owners of the Escobar restaurant say they never intended to offend anyone — that the name was meant to be a play on words, with the last part of it referring to their “bar.”
In an Instagram post on April 30, the restaurant said, “we are in no way glorifying or promoting violence and hope that everyone can reflect upon the same.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BiNjefrlrPo
The restaurant also said, “at this time any violent or threatening comments or personal attacks will not be addressed through any social platforms.”
The owners would not appear on camera.
READ MORE: Statues and streets named after controversial figures in Canada
Latin American cultural workers in Vancouver say the owners are trying to flip the script.
“It’s a common practice that — when people feel they are put on the spot, because of a bad decision that they made that was wrong that hurt communities of colour,” said cultural worker Sonia Medel.
Also unhappy with the restaurant’s name? Nicolás Lloreda Ricaurte, Colombia’s ambassador to Canada, who wrote a letter to Escobar’s owners.
“As you should be aware by now, your choice of name has generated a strong negative reaction from Colombian and non-Colombian nationals alike, who remember all the pain and violence that Escobar brought,” he wrote.
“I dare to think that Canadians would be similarly offended if someone opened a restaurant named after Robert ‘Willie’ Pickton, Marc Lepine, or after the individual responsible for the senseless recent attack on innocent people in Toronto.”
For Contreras, there’s yet another reason why the name is inappropriate.
“In a city like Vancouver, where we’re dealing with such a huge opioid crisis, having the name of a person that caused so much damage because of drug trafficking, it’s a bit absurd,” she said.
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