Opinion: After years of disruption, businesses along Broadway corridor have reached a breaking point

The latest casualties of disruptions along the Broadway corridor include Fable Diner, a fixture at Main and Broadway for a decade and precisely the kind of independent, locally owned business that governments routinely say they want to protect, writes Neil Wyles. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG

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Six months ago, I wrote an open letter warning Transit Minister Mike Farnworth and the provincial government that businesses along Vancouver’s Broadway corridor were reaching a breaking point.

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After years of disruption from the Broadway subway project, revenues were falling, vacancies were rising and owners were exhausting their savings, taking second jobs and, in some cases, selling their homes simply to keep their doors open.

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I warned that without meaningful intervention, more businesses would not survive long enough to see the benefits of a project they had sacrificed so much to accommodate.

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Six months later, this is no longer a warning. It is happening.

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The latest casualties include Fable Diner, a fixture at Main and Broadway for a decade and precisely the kind of independent, locally owned business that governments routinely say they want to protect.

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For months, owner Ron MacGillivray has been remarkably open about what construction has done to his business. Sales fell dramatically. He reduced hours and laid off employees. He sold his home to keep the restaurant alive.

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And still, he tried to hang on.

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Fable Diner is not closing because nobody warned government. It is closing after repeated warnings.

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When the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement Area and a delegation of businesses met with Farnworth several months ago, we didn’t ask for a handout. We asked for practical, temporary financial mitigation for businesses enduring extraordinary disruption through no fault of their own.

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Government knew the problem. Government understood the consequences. Government had a proposed solution. It chose not to act. Instead, business owners were repeatedly told that the province does not compensate businesses for losses arising from major infrastructure construction.

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Government continues to cling to that policy as though it were carved in stone. It isn’t. Governments change policies all the time when circumstances demonstrate they are no longer serving the public interest. This one has survived successive governments because, conveniently, it gives government permission to do nothing.

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And that is particularly difficult to understand when viewed against the present government’s broader economic agenda.

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Government spends millions through economic development programs to create new jobs and billions addressing some of our most complex social and economic challenges. Yet somehow no one has connected the dots: These are among our most vulnerable businesses, and it costs far less to protect good jobs that already exist than to try to recreate them after they disappear.