If you read my post we covered that haha. Honestly politics plays a very big part in food quality and prices and right now stuff that's readily available in grocery stores is no bueno in that regard.
Also, I suggest aburi market, two rivers and you can also get good meat delivered from meridian market. Anything available in restaurants is mostly available to the public.
I'd love to do my part to hurt big grocery chains so if people have food questions send them my way via PM
FUCK these huge grocery conglomerates.

Aburi Market... le wifey can probably blow our entire month's grocery budget in a single trip there lol~

But they have some nice stuff -- some really nice stuff...

Yeah aburi is crazy, but relatively speaking, the value is very good for the quality. Very much a place to get a "celebration steak"

Look who is enjoying incredible freedom.

Wait I thought we didn't have freedom. I guess if we had actual freedom maybe he'd be driving a manual though.

Looks like it's one of Area 27's Camaro SS cars.

Ugh we're in Palm Springs, and ended up upgrading our rental to a Camaro, ending up being the non-SS version, base model.

It's a silly car, why would anyone buy one of these? :lol

Remember when everyone was saying things “aren’t that bad” ?

Well, Apparently they are

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2023/1...ime-coalition/

I think this decriminalization of hard drugs is going to blow up VERY badly very quickly. I’ve seen it first hand degrade extremely quickly since this has happened.

Never in my life have I seen so many crack pipes, people smoking crack pipes and just general disregard for the public by drug users.

Over this past weekend went to a couple breweries and a pub for trivia, going to the pub 3 people smoking crack pipes with one eventually ODing inside the TD bank ATM area. Blowing clouds of who knows what sitting next to the ATM with an ambulance eventually coming when 1 OD’ed while we were next door

Fast forward to Saturday, went to strange fellows and Bomber brewing and I counted 6 people openly smoking crack pipes just sprawled out on the sidewalk yelling at people etc.

We’re heading to San Francisco type levels REAL QUICK, mark my words.

I really think you should watch dopesick, or painkiller. While they are both dramatized, it's a good look on how the opioid epidemic came to be. Basically one corporation and one member of the FDA can be blamed for almost all of it. Everyone who was a part of the lies that got the ball rolling should be dismembered in public.

I’ve watched them, and I know people who have been/are in bad addiction

But understanding the cause of the problem doesn’t resolve the current issues.

I feel for people but Jesus Christ like we’re allowing this to take over society at the expense of your average person. Must be awesome for that family walking by the TD seeing crack heads smoking behind the window. Or shortly after the one being loaded onto a stretcher and in the back of an ambulance.

Figure this shit out. Just continually legalizing things to reduce a stigma at the expense of the safety and comfort of your “regular” citizens is getting to be ducking insaneeeeee.

And that’s just speaking the addiction side let alone these people who are violently shoplifting with hundreds of offences only to be continually reoffending. Get these people off the streets.

To further my point, and to prove it’s not just me being me, while we were out we were with friends who live in Australia who visit every year because their family lives right around the corner from us, this year had a new baby with them. Even they were like wow.. it’s gotten REALLY bad eh?

I’m like yea I guess I’m jaded by it but it kinda underlines the point when you come once a year and it’s a stark difference with the open drug use and homeless increasing as much as it has.

At least Ukraine has its 10 billion dollar relief fund. Not like that could have funded recovery beds or anything.

I agree with you that its fucking absurd they aren't doing more, but again I don't agree that safe supply has anything to do with an increase in ODs or drug use. I still believe that drug use is simply increasing with the metric of
a. people coming to GVRD and other west coast cities because of b listed below
b. people being displaced and ending up homeless because its becoming impossible to afford to live in this country for a larger portion of the population
c. the world simply sucking so fucking much why not just get fucked on heroin and kill yourself

Safe supply needs to be paired with the appropriate means to get people off drugs, and not just with "drugs are bad mmmkay" programs. They need to give people a chance to have their basic needs met for being normal members of society. These opioid issues are increasing at the same rate in places that aren't offering safe supply or legalization.

Well yea that’s what I told our friends who were in town I’m like yea, it’s so bad because now it’s not just your full blown addict who is on the streets, it’s becoming such that “regular” people are ending up there now.

Honestly feels pretty gross going to a Canucks game with $600 worth of tickets in my pocket and spending a few hundred on food and booze in this ultimate vanity experience only to walk out and see people with bloody bandages wrapped around their limbs begging for money sprawled out on the sidewalk strung out

Nice society

I came out of the gym last night around 7:15 PM, there is a couple and then a single parents each pushing a stroller and they are together in a group. They stop on the sidewalk in a weird spot with nothing around but they're in between myself and my truck. As I'm walking I'm like wtf are they doing? Then I see it, crack pipes.

I lost my sister to addiction, all those years of dealing with her bullshit when she was using made me very callous when it comes to addicts and I certainly didn't start out that way. I have no sympathy, all my good will and willingness to help is long burned up.

I think we also need to keep another extremely important point in mind -- the street drugs we have today are nothing like the street drugs we have even just 10 - 15 years ago.

They are:

1) significantly more potent
2) significantly more toxic
3) cheaper
4) some of the street drugs makes you not hungry, and keeps you awake, so you kind of solved the problem of hunger and the need for shelter

#4 is definitely related to the poverty problem, but #3 makes it accessible, and #1 and #2 gets them killed.

The ridiculous (but totally sensible) thing is -- even when the police hits the supply side, it has the akward effect of leading to more ODs and deaths in the immediate short term future because addicts would find alternative sources of drugs, and using new / unfamiliar drugs / different suppliers actually makes it more likely for them to mis-judge the dosage and potency.

So it's almost like you can't hit the suppliers (without causing more immediate term deaths). You can't solve the poverty issue easily. What else can you do?

My wife worked with the city of Philadelphia on a few projects and she got to know many of the higher ups there on a friendly basis

They told her a story one day that the city had to tell news outlets and reporters to stop reporting on overdose deaths, especially when they happened in clumps because what that was doing was driving people to those areas where the people died from overdoses because they would create a perception that that’s where the “good stuff” is

I also wonder if this is what’s driving this crazy explosion of crack pipes because people are too scared to inject potential fentanyl etc. whereas smoking may have a lesser effect

As I’ve said before, one thing you absolutely can do is address repeat offenders. I have no clue why this cannot be done. I know there is some legislation on the books now to try and addess this but it seems like too little too late.

When you have hundreds of offences, and you continue to reoffend, you should be going away for a while without trial, without hesitation. We don’t need a three strike system but maybe after your 100th offence, you can go away for 3-5 no questions asked. And if you continue to reoffend after that or you refuse treatement, you’re not getting out, period.

Canadian society has catered to criminals at the expense of normal, law abiding citizens, and everyone, at every level is to blame.

I don't go downtown at night much, just for work, but went out on Saturday night for Halloween and just tried to grab a bite to eat near Gastown/Chinatown before going to Guilt&Co... in like the 20 feet from the car to the restaurant, had to walk by one of those guys who's doubled over with his feet and head almost touching the ground at the same time (I admire the flexibility... but............) with his ass hanging out of his pants and a HUGE gaping open sore on his lower back... and while walking by that a guy walks by me and my GF and screams in our faces "HOW DO YOU LIKE CHINESE CULTURE?"

Great pre-meal enjoyment.

That area is unbearable now. Every time I drive through it, it seems to get worse and worse. Just having it that close to the downtown core is a huge eyesore

As someone who’s born and raised in Vancouver it’s completely embarrassing what it’s become.

In the last few days two place I frequent have been victims of just mindless vandalism/theft obviously funding drug users. First the food truck top rope birria which is parked at strange fellows brewing got broken into, most basic/uselsss shit stolen, coolers destroyed, the rest of the coolers left open and their inventory for tacos ruined and shit like Bluetooth speakers stolen by obviously crack heads etc. the owner is super nice and a friend of a friend, just a great guy gets shit on like this

Then yesterday Les Amis, posts this on their Instagram, more crack heads climbed onto the roof and destroyed their AC unit for a couple bucks of copper inside leaving thousands of dollars in damage..

https://i.imgur.com/IhzE73s.jpg

Why would any business in and around downtown even want to operate?

London Drugs taking things into their own hands ... so to say.

B.C.'s big retailers send urgent message to governments: Get street crime under control

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-...y-improvements

Pacific poke on main st, also just closed, they had meth lovers break their front glass. 6 times.

In the span of 1 year.

Each bill was apparently 3000$ since it's that reinforced glass.....

The front railing was also ripped out of its rivets and concrete lag bolts lol

"Did you hear about the main and Hastings superhero? That dude was carrying a refrigerator down the street!"



Also, I've posted it here a few years back, but that AC unit being stripped, is nothing new in that area. Our company has been sent out for a larger RTU that was stripped clean of it's evap and condenser coils.......

Look who is going to Germany.

https://www.chemainusvalleycourier.c...rudeau-6830580

Which is why it kinda makes sense to just give people free drugs, as dumb as it sounds. We're already paying for their drugs, and that way it wouldn't cost you thousands for someone to get $20 worth.

That isn’t the answer without proper support in place.

All you’re going to do is provide these “safe” drugs into social settings and create more and more addicts who wouldn’t have been otherwise.

Also if you have a drug addict given free drugs, that doesn’t really solve the property crime issue because they still need to afford the rest of their lifestyle. It’s not like all of a sudden with a safe supply these people are going to start holding down regular jobs.

We’re just at the beginning of downhill roller coaster ride imo. Shit is going to get way worse before it gets better.

Remember that RCmP officer stabbed and killed by the homeless person in Burnaby? Wasn’t someone related to her on here?

An RCMP officer gets killed in the line of duty and things now are wayyyyy worse. If a cop can die on duty with little to no action on the underlying issues which caused her death, what chance does the average person have when it comes to physical violence and property crime?

I always thought with this much fent flooding the streets it would kill them all off quite quickly. I’m disappointed at how resilient these crack heads are.

Yup tbh when Bonnie Henry declared a public health emergency back in 2016? I thought to myself (however heartlessly)...well this is a problem that solves itself!

But...Housing crisis and weather ensures a steady new supply of them filling our streets from across the country.