Skid Row

The term “skid row” most likely originated in Vancouver, though there’s some dispute between us and Seattle over the true first coinage. Not really much of a competition. Who’d want to lay claim to that? Anyway, unlike Seattle’s, where you’re likely to run into 20 post-collegiate Peter Bagge-alikes for every true local, the Couve’s skid row has yet to be gentrified.

Right now there”s a beer war going on; suds are at a rock-bottom prices. Some places are selling $2 mugs and $1 glasses. Hey-oh! East Hastings is the main strip to go to if you want in on all this cheap swill. The farther down you go and longer you stay onboard the cheaper it gets. It’s hard to hang on to customers when they’re dying off, turning to drugs, or turning to drugs then dying off. It’s also pretty tough to stretch a dollar on welfare, so get your gaping-jaw ready for some shocking drink specials. You might even find yourself guzzling them down at one of the establishments that hooker-murdering local legend Robert “Willie” Pickton used to haunt. We could tell you a story or two about that guy, but unfortunately there’s a press ban. Live entertainment at most places will probably be limited to a two-man country band with a drum machine, though if you’re super-lucky, some nights there’ll be karaoke.

Getting hungry? Just find the sign with the dancing neon pigs. It’s a place called Save on Meats, and if you walk straight to the back past the screeching silver grinders you’ll be rewarded with the most massive, juicy burger that you’ll ever have the privilege of eating. It comes with fries.

And if scoping the saddies is more your scene, go farther east on Hastings about 20 blocks until you hit Victoria Drive. Cut north a couple blocks, then dig the tragic teen prostitutes milling about the street at all hours of the day and night. Nearby is the chicken rendering plant, home to one of the worst smells in all of Vancouver. On a warm summer day the stench wafts for blocks and blocks, and it is the perfect olfactory accompaniment to all the indigence. Bon soif, mes amis. 

Photo by Allison Kerr
Mount Pleasant

You know that crazy village Patrick McGoohan’s stuck in in The Prisoner with all the weird architecture? Well, Mount Pleasant is kind of like that. 

Situated to the southeast of downtown Vancouver, it starts in earnest at the northern tip of the triangle where Main Street, Kingsway, and Broadway converge. That block alone boasts a neon shop, a large antiques store, a licensed pool hall, a great second-hand bookstore, a stellar bistro, and an equally awesome vegetarian restaurant. Try not to smoke pot outside the small Greek restaurant though, as that’s where all the cops hang out.

A good portion of Mount Pleasant was built on swampland. As a result, many of the roads have colossal humps in them and the houses tip to one side at crazy angles. 

Main Street slopes upward at a gradual incline, flattening out at 25th Avenue. The difference between the east and west sides of Main Street is like night and day. West of Main has nice, bourgie houses nestled between lush, overgrown trees. East of Main is mostly sparse foliage and beaten-up shacks. Over the years there have been a number of legendary punk-rock party houses in the area. One block of these pads was recently slated for demolition; in the ensuing party frenzy the punks burned one of the houses to the ground. The next night someone came along and burned down the neighboring house. Mount Pleasant is given to partying.

The stretch of Main from 7th to 33rd Avenue is dotted with most anything an urban hipster could ask for: Cheap ethnic eateries, vintage-clothing shops, guerilla art spaces, record stores, and bicycle-repair shops. The nominal center of the area is Heritage Hall, an old building with a four-faced clock tower. Its function room is the site of many a wedding, comic-book swap meet, indie crafts fair, and film shoot. 

A bunch of clueless real estate developers have foolishly attempted to re-dub this area “SOMA” for South Main. (South Main actually starts at 49th Avenue, 39 blocks away.) They’ve also tried the name “Uptown” which happens to be local slang for crack.

Commercial Drive

Commercial Drive is the kind of place where you can walk into a coffee shop and some random with a goatee and a longboard will ask you to wait in line for him so that you can get his iced latte while he sits on the patio and reads a book. This has actually happened to us on more than one occasion. The hippies here are completely out of control! It’s a place where you can eat a falafel most likely made from your neighbor’s compost while watching crazypants burn a design into his wooden flute using sunrays and a magnifying glass. And if you finish puking fast enough, you might even catch him putting on his jester hat to take off on his unicycle.

Grandview Park is the beating heart of all this hullabaloo. It’s kind of like the sanctuary from Logan’s Run, except everybody is dressed a whole lot stupider. The place is totally overrun with hippies, crust-punks, single moms, yuppies from the West End who claim they are on vacation (this one still baffles us), activists, A LOT of lesbians, drug dealers, scenesters, would-be beat poets, Italians, skids (Vancouver is the official home of the skid), and did I mention hippies?

On any given day, the sidewalks of Commersh’ that’s what you call it if you live there, are lined with 20-something hangovers, buskers, dreads, dog shit, and so many garish colors it’s like the Rainbow Wars is having an Expo ’86 reunion tour.

Coffee is the Drive’s forte. Café Roma is an oversized Italian coffee-shop conveniently located next to the liquor store. It’s always full of sweet-talking teenagers and old, cranky, caffeinated wops slipping off to the back room to catch up on their poker game.

Shopping on the Drive isn’t exactly the bee’s knees unless you’re looking for a tie-dye shirt for your dog or a vibrator shaped like a breaching whale. We recommend going to BeckWomans for a solid dose of laugh therapy; it’s a tacky bohemian shop that is cluttered with beaded Che Guevara curtains, silver jewelry, incense, legwarmers, armwarmers, facewarmers, et-fucking-c.

The Drive is packed with restaurants, but Nick’s Spaghetti House is one of the oldest and best, and puts together a mean spaghetti plate with speed and finesse. If you need something to do while you digest, head next door to the Raja Cinemas, which used to be the infamous New York Theatre, and watch Indian Cinema without a crowd. No subtitles though.

Vansterdam? Um, no thanks.

Among pot smokers, BC’s award-winning bud has an almost mythical status, and indeed, our marijuana is worthy of story and song. But even if you aren’t rolling a joint on this magazine and didn’t know that there were awards for marijuana, it’s shouldn’t be any secret that our pot pretty much destroys every other city in the world’s. Unfortunately, the reputation we’ve garnered as North America’s weed capital is completely destroying the city.

The “legalize it” battle cry stopped a while back as the result of having so many smokers and so few jail cells. In the grand scheme of things it just wasn’t seen as prurient to keep on going after folks. A curious fact about the Vancouver Yellow Pages is that the “hydroponics” section is a lot thicker than the “electricians” section. Consequently, all the shitty wiring in the estimated 10,000 grow-ops in Vancouver means you could burn to death in your sleep at any given moment.

Vancouver also has obnoxious marijuana celebrities who will make you want to kill yourself. Take Marc Emery, for example. He’s the head of the Marijuana Party, a political party that ,guess what?, is in favor of pot. Emery would have you believe he’s a freedom fighter, but really he’s just a stoned libertarian. After making millions selling marijuana seeds around the world, he’s about to be extradited to the States to face drug and money-laundering charges. Ironically enough, he’s pleading to the Canadian government, which he’s spent most of his life attacking, to step in and help him. Thankfully, it looks like they’re not going to and Emery will spend the rest of his life in a U.S. jail.

Far worse than the pseudo-celebrities are pot tourists. In the same way that people take those pedophile trips to Southeast Asia, people are now taking a pot vacations to Vancouver. Equating child molestation with toking may seem a tad unfair, but at least pedophiles keep a low profile and don’t wear shirts with little kids on them. They also don’t roam the streets looking stupid and asking anyone under 50 “Where are all the kiddie-sex bars.”

Just to clear the air, no one who lives in Vancouver has ever set foot in one of our town’s pandering “pot bar” so you’d be better off asking those Australian backpackers making a ruckus down the street than one of us.