Is an empty zero block of East Hastings a preview of the city's plan to relocate street vendors?

Last May, the City of Vancouver revealed it hoped to thin out the crowd of street vendors that occupies the zero block of East Hastings Street. The plan was greeted with some skepticism.

Dozens if not hundreds of peddlers have occupied that strip of the Downtown Eastside for years now. And the location the city has proposed they move to—a vacant lot at Powell Street and Jackson Avenue—is seven blocks northeast of the hotels where many of them live.

Will the vendors move along?

I was walking along the zero block on Thursday (June 25) and was surprised to find the space all but deserted.

The city regularly shuffles people along for routine street cleanings. But those usually happen first thing in the morning, between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m., when the crowd is naturally thinner to begin with. So where was everybody, I wondered.

Later that day, a spokesperson with the city told me a cleaning crew had swept through the zero block around 9:30 that morning, a couple of hours later than usual and less than a half hour prior to my walk through the area. (If I were one to lend credence to conspiracy theories, I might mention here that the province's health minister and accompanying entourage were visiting the area right around that time.)

For those who said it couldn’t be done, check out the photo above. A clean and vendor-free zero block of East Hastings. Maybe the city will have its way and this strip will be permanently cleared of vendors soon enough.