Good Luck to the small businesses already in trouble down town. This is a huge mistake and I feel sorry for them. What should be done is looking after the drug addicts, alcoholics and homeless. That is the problem!

"What should be done is looking after the drug addicts, alcoholics and homeless. That is the problem!"

The "downtown" is a large area and, like most other cities, the area is not homogeneous. Different parts "suffer" from different problems. They may even vary by the time of the day.

Tell me, has the summer farmer's market moved? Are fewer people coming to it because of the problem? Did B&B music take the opportunity of their fire to move to a new location in the city? Why did a coffee shop re-open on the corner? Why is the farmer's market interested in opening an inside, year-round market on what might be the "worst" corner in the downtown?

Look at the other end of downtown - Victoria and Third. The problem there is the removal of street level shops by the feds and CIBC thus rendering a full block useless for drawing shoppers downtown.

The problem is that we have insufficient numbers of homegrown retail that typically do well in specialty areas of a city. The national chains will not go into any small City's downtown. There are none in Kelowna, Kamloops, Nanaimo, etc.

There is no "ambience" on the western edge of downtown which has the largest congregation of workers during the day. There are spots, but they are not tied together into a cohesive unit.

The DBIA has not recognized that simple fact of urban design for the last 10 years. Neither has the City.

There are no indications that the new iteration of the partnership of City and DBIA will recognize that either.

t different times of the day.

Lets hope that council isnt stupid enough to sign their own death warrent. But with someomnem as smart as Mayor Rogers at the helm one would never know.
Cheers

"Councilors gave first three readings to the council-led initiative"

That statement explains how and why the DBIA has been able to forge ahead regardless of the strong dissent.

This is going to happen because the current council not only wants it, they started it. From that statement alone, it would seem Mr Gable is more of the toady than we suspected.

Many on this site have blasted him relentlessly, and in the end he was only following orders. So our rage has been misdirected at the wrong target. It is an inexperienced council led by a mayor with no practical business experience or acumen.

let 'er rip!

I hope this passes - anything that helps move the downtown forward is good.