The rarity of gun violence in downtown Vancouver can be attributed to the Lower Mainland’s Bar Watch program and good work from the Vancouver police department’s gang squad, according to Donnelly Hospitality Management owner Jeff Donnelly, who owns 12 bars, pubs or restaurants and is readying to open four more within the next five months.
Future Donnelly establishments include:
“We haven’t made it public that we’re opening the cocktail bar so I’ll get a few phone calls if you put that in,” Donnelly told Business in Vancouver on November 1.
Donnelly said gunshots fired in Gastown during the early morning hours of October 31 were likely gang related but that it is too early to tell.
“We haven’t had a gun shot in downtown Vancouver in two years. We were doing really well,” Donnelly said.
What is clear, he said, was that if the shooting had happened in one of his bars instead of on the street, more details would be forthcoming because the Bar Watch system requires a scan of club-goers’ identification to prove they are not on a list of those suspected of involvment in gang activity.
“Frankly, all the recent shootings have been happening in the suburbs. You hate to say it but it’s happening because they don’t have the same systems we do,” Donnelly said.
Some suburban nightclubs and bars are part of the Bar Watch system although the program is more prominent downtown.
Donnelly’s passion for the program stems partly from a shooting at his former bar Loft 6 in Gastown in 2003 (See Jeff Donnelly profile Night Vision – issue 1070; April 27 – May 3).