On a cloudy late-summer morning on Hastings Street near the corner of Carrall, a gaunt man in his 30s repeatedly swings a golf putter over his head and downward, as if he were going to chop wood with it. Passers-by give his slow, methodical swings a wide berth.
Further east on the crowded sidewalk is a tough-looking woman in black cutoff jeans and a frayed scarlet bustier, cigarette clenched in her lips, trying on a jean jacket offered by a sidewalk vendor — one of dozens on the block.
Bicycles of uncertain provenance, cigarettes at $3 a pack, odd bits of electronic gear, bootleg DVDs, used clothing — the north side of the “unit block” of East Hastings is a daily eruption of capitalism at its most unfettered.
The buyers and sellers — this day numbering around 60 — have for years dodged police and city work-crew efforts to sweep them away. More recently, they have resisted the lure of officially sanctioned vending spots, one on a city-owned lot just across the street.
“Nobody walks on that side of the road,” said 30-year-old vendor Scott, of the sanctioned market. He and his wife Crystal claim a spot on the north side of Hastings by 7 a.m. every weekday. “There’s more happening here. Everybody has to walk past my stuff.”
This day Scott and Crystal have spread out an assortment of baseball hats, women’s shoes, jeans, phone chargers, felt pens, a suitcase and three tennis balls in a plastic container.
“All of my stuff is given to me or bought, Dumpster-dived and cleaned up,” Scott said. “None of my stuff is stolen.”
Scott and Crystal tried selling for a day at the sanctioned spot across the street, but didn’t get the traffic they needed. They crossed back to the north side and spent two weeks reclaiming their old spot.
“There’s seniority, respect among the people here,” Scott said. “There’s the law and there’s our law down here. But I don’t have people who are friends down here. I don’t want to be owing any favours.”
The couple make $30 on a bad day, and more than $100 when sales are brisk. Panhandling supplements what they earn when times are slow.
But changes are coming to this block. Some thought the street trade would vanish when the United We Can bottle depot closed its doors last year, but it didn’t happen. There will be a stronger push to finally move the vendors to city-sanctioned markets after a new mixed-housing highrise is completed on the depot site next year.
Meanwhile, the chaotic street scene goes on, rain or shine.
