Former Toronto Raptors star Danny Green was in Vancouver last week — but after his experience in town, he may not be in a rush to return.
The shooting guard was in Vancouver to hold a kids’ camp and sign autographs at a new London Drugs location in Dunbar.
But on the latest episode of his Yahoo Sports podcast Inside the Green Room, he recounted how a poorly selected Airbnb rental left him and his travelling companions dealing with a major theft.
WATCH: NBA star Danny Green shares story of visit to Vancouver
“We don’t know much about Vancouver,” Green said on the podcast. “We booked the Airbnb — in the pictures, it looked great, it always does. I mean, I stay in a hotel, but a lot of guys stay in Airbnb.”
But arriving at the room, they found things weren’t exactly as advertised — describing the rental as looking “old,” “raggedy” and “haunted.” It turned out the booking was in the city’s Downtown Eastside.
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“We didn’t know there’s a ghetto or a ‘hood in Vancouver … so we go check out the Airbnb … we go upstairs, we’re up there for about 10 minutes, we check out the map, ‘Oh gee, Canada has a whole bunch of stuff going on, we didn’t know there was all this stuff,'” the six-foot-six star told podcast host Harrison Sanford.
“We go back outside and pretty much — not robbed of everything, but two book bags gone, one of the book bags had a lot of stuff in it.”
Green said the bags were pinched from his vehicle, which may or may not have been locked.
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He said they were full of electronics, a computer and even cash from registrations in the kids camp.
“Mind you, we didn’t know where we were located, you don’t know what East Hastings is… We’re two blocks from East Hastings. We didn’t know that until we walk up on it,” he said.
“This thing, it’s the worst street in North America in terms of drug use … What’s the place in L.A.? Skid Row? Worse than that, supposedly.”
Green said police accompanied him as he looked for the missing bags, but said the streets were packed with people who were all carrying book bags.
“We ran the street like savages looking for whoever took these book bags,” Green said.
In an email to Global News, Vancouver police said they were unable to find a report referring to the incident, but that an investigator has now been assigned to look into it.
“‘Theft from auto’ is a major concern in Vancouver, especially downtown. We continue to see an increase in the number of incidents,” said VPD Sgt. Jason Robillard.
“The VPD consistently encourages people to remove all visible items from their cars when they park anywhere in the city. Even if it is a small item and does not seem valuable to you, it might be enough to tempt a thief.”
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“I think we’ll be OK, but nobody wants to be taken — as soon as we land in the city,” said Green. “We had a tough time, a lot of Airbnbs that didn’t look the way they are supposed to look there.”
Global News has requested information on the theft from Vancouver police.
Green isn’t the first high-profile celebrity to have a negative experience in Vancouver’s DTES.
Back in 2016, rapper Snoop Dogg took to Instagram to trash the neighbourhood, calling it “terrible” and saying, “You need to clean this up.”
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