With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1501233
T he little shop at the corner of Victoria Drive and Grant Street had been a favourite stop of mine for years, a place to pick up an obscure spice or a poblano pepper without having to trek through the carnival crowds at Granville Island. But when South China Seas Trading Company closed a few months ago, I didn't just lose a local shopping outlet. Knowing city policies as well as I do, I was very aware that the space needed to re-open with another commercial operation soon, or it would lose its grandfathered status as a permitted retail site in the middle of a mostly residential neighbourhood. Like many other former small neighbourhood convenience stores, it would be relegated back to residential use only, never to return. As it turns out, someone had the space on their radar: Colin Sinclair, who runs Del Ray Barber Shop, currently on East 4th Avenue just off Com- mercial Drive. The new location for his operation would have been a pleasant and different addition to the small collection of shops and businesses already strung out sporadically along Victoria Cut and Dried Vancouver's antiquated rules around city planning are making it hard for local entrepreneurs and business owners to plant their flags By Frances Bula L A N D VA LU E S Drive: a housewares boutique, an Italian deli, a vintage shop, a garden-supply store. "I thought it was a good fit because my hours are better than other types of businesses," says Sinclair. But it was not to be. City staff told Sinclair that the place needed to be a grocery. He of- fered to have some cold drinks or something packaged and grocery-like on site, a work- around that other businesses in these kinds of spaces have used. But then they said it had to be 50 percent groceries. And then they sent him off to Van- couver Coastal Health, where he got a raft of questions asking why he was selling food in a hair-cutting establishment. "I just got stuck in this loop." Eventually, Sinclair and the owner of the shop and the house attached to it, Derek Bel- ton, came to the reluctant con- clusion that Sinclair was never going to be able to untangle the Gordian knot of city processes. Belton moved on to trying to rent the spot to someone else, though others ran into the same "you must be a grocery shop" issues. So the final out- come is still up in the air. "It's unfortunate. We really took a shine to Colin," says Bel- ton, who also owns the house and shop a couple of blocks away at Charles and Victoria, where Tanya McLean runs The Coast Goods. (She gets to be a non-grocer because of the store's history.) WHEN THEY FIND US ( the informer ) JULY/AUGUST 2023 BCBUSINESS.CA 21 HAIRY SITUATION It seems Colin Sinclair's dream of a barbershop on Victoria Drive has dyed