Future of London Drugs at Woodward's uncertain due to crime
When the municipal government partnered with local developer Westbank to redevelop the city-block-sized historic department store complex into a mix of residential, commercial, and institutional spaces, the project was envisioned as both an economic driver and a community hub for Gastown and the Downtown Eastside.
Below significant market housing and below-market housing uses, Woodward’s lower levels contain the anchor tenants of Simon Fraser University’s School for Contemporary Arts, the large-format retailers of London Drugs and Nesters Market, and various other smaller retail, restaurants, and services.
The significant commercial and institutional uses are intended to help attract pedestrian traffic, and catalyze the overall economic revitalization of the wider area beyond the property.
TD Bank, a longtime tenant at Woodward’s, shut down its location in 2024 after repeated vandalism, including a series of window-smashing incidents. Recently, there have been discussions to potentially turn this former bank space into a new community policing centre, which fulfills a direction by Vancouver City Council to provide Gastown with such a localized Vancouver Police Department (VPD) hub.
Smashed windows at TD Bank in Woodward’s, October 2022. (Submitted)
Former commercial unit of TD Bank at Woodward’s. (Kenneth Chan)
But the future of London Drugs at Woodward’s is now also coming to a head, driven not only by a sustained rise in retail theft since the pandemic but also by escalating concerns over staff safety at the location.
“The disturbing piece is the abuse of the staff that we’ve seen and a lot of situations involving that. It has been pretty consistent down there, and if you can imagine in your workplace to be in a situation where you don’t know whether or not somebody’s going to come in and throw something at your or swear at your during your shift, that can be really destabilizing,” said Hunt.
“So, having an employer that cares and does everything they possibly can to prevent it is vital and important, and that’s what we work on.”
Like many other retailers, London Drugs has optimized and pivoted its operational strategies to prevent and catch shoplifting, including ramping up the number of loss prevention workers assigned to stores.
In fact, he says, select store locations have seen their security budgets tripled and quadrupled.
In addition to hiring extra security personnel and investing in security equipment and infrastructure, London Drugs has made substantial investments in training staff on communication skills and de-escalation tactics. This training aims to better equip employees for non-violent crisis intervention and provide effective ways to handle incidents after they occur.
“The thing that really disturbs us is we’ve got real hardened criminals and opportunists taking drug addicted, mentally ill, and unhoused people — people who are most vulnerable in our community and encouraging them to go and commit crime,” said Hunt.
“They commit crime in ways and in places where their you know their difficulties and coping skills actually can create a situation where there can be violence. So we’re really quite concerned about that.”
London Drugs at Woodward’s. (Kenneth Chan)
Community members and businesses worry that London Drugs’ departure from Woodward’s could trigger a chain reaction of closures, especially if anchor business presence vacancies remain unfilled for an extended period.
At this time, no final decision has been made about the future of this store location.
“I know we don’t want to [close]. We’re doing our best to make sure we help the neighbourhood, continuing to provide a space for people to be able to work and shop,” Hunt told Daily Hive Urbanized.
“We don’t wish to close any location. No retailer wants to do that, but we have to put our staff safety first. So right now, it’s just all hands on deck trying to make sure we provide the most safe and secure environment possible.”
That said, Hunt points to recent signs of progress, but stresses that crime levels at this location remain alarmingly high. Hunt shared that the recent increase in police presence in the area has helped reduce the number of incidents staff at the Woodward’s store have had to handle.
This recent progress also stems from a new coordinated approach in partnership with the VPD, which has targeted nearby illicit markets and other operations that fence the theft of goods and merchandise from London Drugs and other businesses in the downtown Vancouver peninsula.
“Downtown Eastside Market, for sure, is a huge hub where a lot of stolen property from the stores and things end up,” said Kevin Parkinson, a member of the VPD’s anti-fencing team, today during a retail crime forum.
“We’ve worked targets that are going into retailers and stealing product that are taking that product, and they’re actually putting it on social media sites and they’re flipping it themselves.”
Stolen merchandise also ends up at flea markets and even overseas, according to Parksinson.
Nesters Market at Woodward’s. (Kenneth Chan)
Arezo Zarrabian, a senior analyst for the VPD, shared there were 6,883 reported retail theft incidents in 2023, and this figure increased by 12% in 2024 to 7,686 reported incidents, including 3,242 incidents that occurred in downtown Vancouver, where shoplifting went up by 40% year-over-year.
It is important to note that these figures refer to reported incidents, and specifically for the category of shoplifting cases valued under $5,000. Zarrabian mentioned one example of a retailer who told the VPD that they internally recorded 4,000 incidents, but only reported 1,300 incidents to the police for that year.
Both the VPD and E-Comm, the 9-1-1 call operation agency, have been working to improve their non-emergency reporting systems, which is the primary stream for reporting most types of retail theft. For years, it has been known that the long wait times in the phone-based system have been deterring businesses and other crime victims from reporting non-emergency incidents, which means official statistics do not necessarily provide an accurate picture of the full depth of the issues.
In response, VPD has enhanced its website’s non-emergency incident reporting features, now allowing online reports for thefts under $5,000 to include the names of suspects — a valuable tool for businesses that frequently deal with repeat offenders. E-Comm recently deployed a new dedicated non-emergency call team during peak hours, and upgraded their technological platforms to provide callers with more options, including call wait-time estimates and call-back features.
“We really need to know the scope of the problem. If we don’t know the scope of the problem, I can’t send cops to go deal with it. I can’t engage my neighbourhood policing team to go solve the problem,” said VPD Inspector Marco Veronesi, who leads policing operations in the department’s District One — the downtown Vancouver peninsula.
Over the last 30 days, there were 270 retail theft incidents in the core of downtown Vancouver, 42 incidents in Gastown, Chinatown, and the Downtown Eastside, 80 incidents near SkyTrain’s Broadway-City Hall Station (27 incidents on the Fairview side and 53 incidents in the Mount Pleasant side), and 51 incidents from one unspecified big-box store on Grandview Highway.
Zarrabian also noted that there has been a new rising trend of crime along public transit corridors, including SkyTrain stations and other transit hubs. Zarrabian also specifically highlighted a “massive increase” in crime near the various SkyTrain stations in downtown Vancouver and Commercial-Broadway Station, as well as in proximity to Renfrew Station and Rupert Station. Businesses near these stations saw a big increase compared to other areas.
“One common thing we’re seeing in our statements is staff writing in their victim statements or police statements that they fear opening the stores in the morning, they fear closing the stores in the evening, and that’s all part of this greater picture of the retail crime,” said Zarrabian.
Parksinson asserted that individuals in fencing operations, which are highly organized and have a hierarchy, erroneously believe retail theft is a “victimless” crime.
“They don’t really think that what they’re doing is wrong. They don’t care if the item is stolen,” said Parksinson. “A lot of our fences have families, have a life.”
Customers are bearing the costs of both retail theft losses and significantly increased security measures. Hunt referenced a cost estimate from the Save Our Streets retail coalition, an advocacy group co-founded by the leadership of London Drugs, which is calling for stronger government action against shoplifting. According to the coalition, the average Canadian family is now paying an additional $824 per year due to retail theft, which they describe as a 2.2% “theft tax” added to the price of goods.
Opposite of London Drugs within the Woodward’s atrium, retail theft is also an issue for Nesters Market.
Located just one block to the west of Woodward’s, Dressew Supply, an iconic fabric and sewing store, announced in August 2024 its intention to close its store, with the timeline for the closure still yet to be determined. Over the years, the family-based business has been highly vocal about retail theft, public disorder, vandalism, and other crime — even going as far as keeping their storefront windows boarded up since the early period of the pandemic. While crime is a factor, the business has indicated that this is not their primary reason for closing.
2023 new mural painted on the March 2020-installed boarding on the storefront of Dressew Supply at 337 West Hastings Street, Vancouver. (Google Maps)
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