NG Farrell Marketing

The 2011 Vancouver Riot was the final act of bad behaviour by a wide range of Metro Vancouver residents that escalated throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs. But the flames that burned the night of June 15th were fanned by municipal political leaders under the Vision Vancouver moniker who are trying too hard to have city residents embrace their political philosophy, and by a misguided (perhaps sometimes duped) city administration that cannot see that it is our culture as a city that already makes Vancouver truly "fun".

The events leading up to and including the riots of June 15^th  have been well documented, as have the tough questions now being asked. Questions including how could the City and specifically Mayor Gregor Robertson not have known that some kind of catastrophic event would happen by inviting too many people into a confined space, at the culmination of a major international sporting event, without proper levels of security and volunteer support, all within a known culture of over-consumption of alcohol?

Answers will soon be forthcoming from the official external and internal reviews taking place, but I would like to propose an alternative perspective.

The question I would like to ask is this: when else do riots and mob violence occur, other than during wars, political upheavals and….sporting events?

Rarely, if ever.

And at risk of sounding anti-sport or snobbish (I am neither), I would like to suggest that it is not large crowds per se that create riots and violence, it is crowds that have gathered in a spirit of hyper competitiveness that spark violence. Crowds that have assembled in the singular and sanctioned spirit of an “us versus them” mentality, crowds that have no alternative but to react with extreme emotion to a 50/50 chance of a big loss, crowds that have the fuel and the spark for a communicable, explosive reaction to stimuli, are what give us problems.

And not just the problems that we saw during the recent Stanley Cup playoffs, but problems that occur every Friday and Saturday night on Granville Street in the entertainment district. I challenge everyone who hasn’t done so in a few years to go for a stroll on Granville on a Saturday night at 2am, and you will be dismayed to see the exact same rowdy, drunken behaviour that occurred during the play offs - most likely by many of the same people who were out smashing store windows on June 15th!

Dear readers, we have near riots every weekend in downtown Vancouver. Check it out if you are brave. You will also see the same “meet and greet” tactic of the VPD with police personnel on orders to only intervene in extreme cases, but otherwise turning a blind eye to violent, crude behaviour that doesn't even meet minimum entry requirements for membership in a civilized society.

We’ve let the bar drop to a dangerously low level.  And when something like a Stanley Cup playoff comes to town, we don’t have far to fall before we lose complete control and start behaving like rabid animals.

Even the annual fireworks competition (emphasis mine) generally brings a certain unsavoury element to the crowds, including aggressive and violent behaviour, public drunkenness, property destruction, and extreme littering.

But, when was the last time you heard of a riot occurring at an outdoor cultural event? Does the City ever feel compelled to employ and pay for a vast amount of additional security for outdoor music or cultural festivals? During the major, annual, summer jazz festival that attracts thousands and thousands of people to outdoor venues, are riot police ever assembled nearby, waiting for orders to deploy tear gas?

Of course not. And here's why:

Culture and cultural events, by their very nature, are designed to bring people together in a way that makes them want to co-exist as one. There is no “do or die” mentality amongst audiences, people do not wail in the streets if a performer flubs a phrase,  nor do the fans of  bands or music ensembles representing different musical genres generally conspire to bash each other's heads in or trash their own downtown core.

Vancouverites enjoy literally hundreds of out door, cultural-based events every year. The list is impressive, and includes classical, popular and alternative music, dance and film festivals, an outdoor Shakespearean festival, ethnic cultural street festivals, Canada Day celebrations,  GLBT parades and parties, etc. etc.

These are the types of events that our political leaders should promote, nurture and support.

Cultural events appeal to people from all walks of life. They attract real tourism dollars from outside of our own vicinity, and have programs and offerings that nurture the mind and the soul, rather than overly catering to the base, tribal and uncouth that exists in all of us.

In fact, cultural events are...fun!

So let’s not stop at just pointing fingers over what went wrong during the Stanley Cup playoffs. Let's take what we learn from this even further. While putting up bigger fences and having the riot police ready earlier next time might reduce the risks of harm, they are not going to eliminate the problem.

In short,  let's stop beating ourselves up over hockey.

Instead, let’s make sure our political leaders stop trying to score political points by irrationally latching onto commercial sporting events at the risk of the lives and property of citizens and business owners. Let’s insist that they develop and adhere to new “fun city” strategies, by creating and investing in culture  and cultural events - events big and small, high brow and low brow alike -  that serve one purpose: creating and nurturing peace, beauty, civilization, and the advancement of human kind.