The homeowners of the one full-service grocery retailer in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside say they’re not sure if they may be capable to keep within the Woodward’s constructing.
Pattison Meals Group says working Nesters Market is difficult, given the extent of crime within the neighbourhood.
The corporate says that shoplifting losses at that retailer are double what different areas see on common and it spends hundreds on safety to maintain workers and clients secure.
“This has the very best working price in our total chain and it’s a really low quantity retailer,” Pattison Meals Group president Jamie Nelson informed International Information, including that it’s the most shoplifted Nesters within the province.
In late March, a shoplifter lit a hearth in one of many aisles, sparking a hearth that induced greater than half 1,000,000 {dollars} in harm and compelled the shop to shut for 2 weeks.
Victor Atkinson, 50, was initially charged with arson to inhabited property and theft however pleaded responsible in June to the lesser cost of arson to property.
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He obtained a two-year conditional sentence adopted by two years of probation.
Following his arrest on the close by Gastown Resort SRO, Atkinson informed police he began the hearth at Nesters within the Woodward’s constructing as a distraction tactic so he may proceed shoplifting, which he does to help his drug use.
Whereas acknowledging his responsible plea saved court docket time and appreciable Crown and police assets, prosecutors stated Atkinson posed an unimaginable hazard to everybody else – simply so he may shoplift.
Nelson stated there needs to be penalties for folks’s actions and if there aren’t, issues gained’t change.
He stated they need to preserve serving the neighborhood, but when the economics don’t make sense, they could should make a troublesome choice.
© 2026 International Information, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.