NPA would help revitalize shuttered stretch of Main Street ignored by Vancouver Mayor Robertson

GENERAL MAIN STREET SIGNS Boda

THE once-flourishing Punjabi Market in South Vancouver has become a ghost town of shuttered businesses, yet Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has done nothing to help support the community as it faces hardships, Non-Partisan Association (NPA) mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe says in a video released Monday.

“The Vision Vancouver machine has failed this area,” says LaPointe.

Jay Jagpal, NPA Park Board Commissioner candidate, lives in the Punjabi Market area. His family’s South Vancouver roots extend to 1971.

Speaking in Punjabi in a video release, Jagpal says “this neighbourhood needs a government that is directly connected to it and cares about it, and that’s the change the NPA is offering.”

The stretch of Main Street between 48th and 51st Avenue once boasted a variety of retail outlets, restaurants and other South Asian cultural offerings. It is now a strip of empty stores, their windows papered over and displaying “Closed” signs.

An example of the City’s neglect of the struggling community is the India Gate that was to be finished for the 2010 Olympics. The City supported the construction of the project. It was never built.

Mayor Robertson has done nothing to develop plans that would market the area and help restore it to its former vibrancy, says LaPointe.

“When neighbourhoods face tough times, their civic government must step in, build a new plan to support them and help resolve the issue,” says LaPointe. “Mayor Robertson has not done this. But I will.”

 

Videos at:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCA7DC6LzKg

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7jquhkmJc4