Monday, January 2, 2012

WTF is Wrong With Vancouver?

The Vancouver Sun originally published an edited version of this article on November 10, 2011.

As I passed by a cigarette machine recently in a Louisiana bar, not only did the sight of it strike me odd as a Vancouverite but it got me thinking about what I most abhor about Vancouver; it’s that today, those little do-gooder controlling types have not only got the upper hand but they seem to be gaining momentum. Vancouver (BC, for that matter, because all of BC revolves around Vancouver, doesn’t it?) is more and more representing a sterile culture that you'd expect from smug, holier than thou, navel gazing, controlling, narcissistic, stuck up, colonial, puritan, whining, intolerant hypocritical do-gooders.

What is “quality of life” – does it include having your mother legislate your every move including what you can and cannot consume, condescendingly telling you what’s best for you... and forcing behaviour (change) under rule of law? Call me a throwback from days long gone (in BC), or maybe just a plain old simple idealist, but is it really too much to wish for that Vancouverites might have a little tolerance and resist the urge to control the every move and / or vice of others? Where is it really getting us to legislate away what are essentially annoyances at this point? We’ve now got some local politicians actually gloating at the prospect that the day will soon arrive where smoking anywhere in public will be outlawed entirely. This is good?

On a beautiful warm evening in the summer of 2010, a small bar opened in Gastown across from the Hotel Europe and a 3 piece band showed up at 8pm on the back of a pickup truck to play for free. Shortly afterward, 10 or 15 of the approximately 40 or so patrons had the audacity to migrate to the sidewalk with open alcohol. It was a magic impromptu moment until the VPD arrived, to threaten the owners, patrons, give a tongue lashing to everybody and send the musicians packing because, horror of horrors, they were too noisy. You see unless you had a permit in an entertainment district in Vancouver, you were not allowed to make any noise at 8:45 on a Friday night. Artists or no artists, rules were rules and as one officer belligerently told me it would likely not be long before a local resident complained.

Indeed, it got me thinking about a situation I found myself involved in years ago. I was living in a waterfront False Creek condo for several years with no issue until the neighbour from hell, moved in above me. I awoke prematurely one morning to the sound of thunder in my room. Whoever was now above me was not only one of those super annoying types, that get up at the crack of dawn (probably cheerful and exercising at that time no less), but he / it had the walk of an elephant. Subsequently I woke up every morning at the same time, at first silently cursing him but the realization that the poor bastard probably had no life allowed me to feel sorry for him and I quickly adjusted my attitude. Ironically, it wasn’t two weeks later before he showed up at my door, not to introduce himself, but to complain about my television and stereo. What’s more annoying I asked myself as I turned the TV down at 3 in the afternoon; waking up to an elephant walking above you at the crack of dawn when you are half asleep, or enduring somebody’s TV news mid day? It never occurred to me to complain about him or to him that his pounding on my floor at the crack of dawn was not my cup of tea either.

Intolerance and lack of humour is a provincial pastime. Suzanne Anton was recently forced to defend an NPA council candidate for running a website of questionable humour (the best kind btw), and who could forget the dancing penis in the legislature and the resulting howls of outrage from the NDP at the time. The NDP even threw one of their own candidates under a bus when he was discovered on a face book page groping some woman in a picture. Hypocrisy.... what, none of us have done it? Never inhaled or smoked it but grew up in Vancouver? Sure.

I hate to bring up Louisiana again but it’s the most recent reminder for me. Not only do people smoke wherever they want to, but they walk in public with open containers of alcohol (and they drink them too). The bars are noisy and the music is everywhere. The musicians smoke. It seems reasonable to me that if you don’t want to smell smoke then don’t go to the bar. If you don’t want to be kept awake with music then don’t live above a patio only to complain or have council legislate patio closures at 11 pm. It’s also pretty obvious to just about anybody, except provincial and municipal politicians it seems, that binge drinking and loutish behaviour in BC is a direct result of prohibition and scarcity that ironically they created and continue to support.

Nothing represents better the smug, navel gazing, holier than thou, narcissism than the ICBC license plates “The Best Place on Earth” which should read “The Best Place on Earth If You Enjoy Being Told What to do by Your Mother 24/7”.

All of this controlling behaviour has me thinking more and more about something Elizabeth Taylor once uttered “The problem with people who have no vices is generally you can be pretty sure they’re going to have some annoying virtues”.