Save on Meats Closing

Save on Meats, the cheap meat store at 43 W Hastings on the Downtown Eastside, will be closing on March 14, 2009.  

I was in there this morning buying some shaved Black Forest ham and I asked the clerk why they were closing.  "The owner's retiring," she said.  That would presumably be the owner who was pushing for curbs on thieves via an '8 strikes your out' law.  Or was it 12 strikes?  I just remember it was some ridiculous number of strikes.  

The owner is 77 years old, which serves as a reminder that meat laced with nitrates doesn't kill everbody.  He's operated Save on Meats since 1957.

A friend once described Save on Meats as the meat version of Sunrise market, where things are brought there to sell when they're no longer totally fresh but are still ok.  But he shopped there a lot and was wondering this afternoon if any other store would open "to replace it".

I heard that a person who used to work there said that on welfare day, they would bring out all the old meat to get rid of it.  But another friend said "That's how all businesses work."

Don't get me wrong, I never got sick on meat I bought at Save on Meats.  I'll miss it.  

Tea without a Pee

You would think that a place serving as much liquid as Waves coffee shop would have a washroom. I am with a couple of friends in Waves coffee shop at Hastings & Richards this evening, and there are no washrooms.  None.  

Customers are going out to the back alley to pee.  

Washrooms are a chronic problem at this particular Waves.  Either the men's or the women's is usually out of order.  They have lightweight toilets that appear to have been designed for private homes not for a busy restaurant.  The Waves on Main St. near Hastings has restaurant calibre washrooms.  

If it weren't for the washroom problem, this would be a good internet cafe.

Uncomfortable Question: Why are People Shooting Up at Carnegie Instead of the Safe Fixing Site on the same Block

Operation Pheonix, the media project focusing on the Downtown Eastside, promised to ask "uncomfortable questions" of Downtown Eastside povertarians.  We're still waiting.

I have an uncomfortable question. During the cold spell recently, Carnegie members were finding it difficult to get access to a washroom in the late evening. The washrooms -- particularly the women's washrooms, I've been told by 3 women -- were being used as shooting galleries.  Three women told me that the first floor washroom at Carnegie had a steady flow of women going in to shoot up at night.  If a straight woman was using the washroom, a junkie would too often be outside the door pestering her to "hurry up" or asking, "How long are you going to be?"  People waiting for washrooms -- including those who support the safe injection site -- were commenting about those shooting up, "Why don't they use the safe fixing site."  It's on the same block. 

The fact that people are choosing not to use the safe fixing site was reinforced by a comment dag from covenantzone.blogspot left at the Downtown Eastside Enquirer today. 

"I asked the fellow picking up discarded needles and other fixings on the streets how business was yesterday. He told me it was good, that he'd gotten by then over 150 needles...."

Out of the Fire, Onto the Front Page

In the above DTES Enquirer photo, a Vancouver fireman helps a woman stand upright yesterday as she speaks to an ambulance attendant.  She had just been brought down the smoky fire escape of the Washington Hotel, housing for the addicted or troubled, as firemen doused a serious fire.  Firemen must have found her in the building because she was brought down at least half an hour after the fire started; that was after the flames visible in one of the hotel windows had been doused by firemen.  The woman got into the ambulance.

This morning she was on the front page of the Province.  

The Province ran a dramatic photo, obviously taken with a zoom lens, of her looking scared as a fireman helped her down the fire escape.  (You can see her crouched on the right side of the photo.)

She was also the focus of the lead photograph on both the Sun and the Province websites.

Hi mom.

Major Fire in Washington Hotel Fills Streets with Spectators on Downtown Eastside

Yesterday a Downtown Eastsider was eating lunch at the Carnegie Center at Main & Hastings when it became obvious there was an emergency nearby.  "I heard siren after siren after siren." The Downtown Eastsider rushed outside and saw fire fighters at the Washington Hotel next to the Balmoral Hotel near Main & Hastings. The air was filled with smoke.  

People poured out of Carnegie Center and the nearby hotels and povertarian organizations and lined the sidewalks near Main & Hastings, to watch the fire fighters.  A crowd also stood on Cordova St. watching the fire from the rear of the Washington.  Flames and smoke were visible in a room with a window facing Cordova St. 

The Downtown Eastsider took a few photos and emailed them to us.  

 

The photo above was taken on Hastings St.  The Washington Hotel is the one with the ladder leaning against it. 

Update:  It has since been revealed that the Washington Hotel fire left 100 people homeless. City Emergency Social Services arrived to help Washington tenants find emergency shelter.

Main & National

Photo taken Wed., Feb. 4/09 at roughly 5:30 p.m.