"This keeps them alive": Locals fight to preserve Sunrise Market

Downtown Eastside residents filled a community hall on Saturday to talk about the neighbourhood’s Sunrise Market, with fears the sale of the business could spell the end of what has long been a community staple.

The future of the market is still up in the air, with the business listed for $4.5 million late last year. But at the nearby Vancouver Japanese Language School and Japanese Hall, well over 100 residents spent part of a sunny afternoon at a town hall put on by Our Homes Can’t Wait, a coalition of organizations advocating against displacement in Vancouver.

The meeting was largely in English, but there were also interpreters for Cantonese and Mandarin speakers.

Participants gathered in breakout discussions to talk about two main points: the impact of the business on them and their communities, and what solutions they would like to see moving forward.

Representatives from tables shared with the room what their tables came up with.

“It’s people-friendly, and more than that, it’s a meeting place. You go there to do your shopping, and you meet your friends and neighbours and other people,” said one participant.

Several speakers spoke to the respect the store has for its community.

“They have the love of the community. That’s because they’re respectful,” one person said. “And they don’t treat us like we’re dirty, or we’re not welcome there. And some of the other big box stores do that.”

Participants also highlighted the affordability, with Sunrise Market selling food at a cost that works for a broadly low-income community. 

“Someone at our table even said that this keeps them alive,” said one speaker. “So that’s the severity and the nature of what we’re facing right now.”

In fact, multiple tables said people will travel from beyond the Downtown Eastside and Strathcona to shop at Sunrise, including one participant saying she would come from as far as the Nanaimo SkyTrain station.

“It’s accessible, nutritious, good quality food. The quality doesn’t suffer because of the cost,” a participant told the room. “We have the dignity to choose our food there, with a wide selection of cheap food.”

That wide selection can cater to all kinds of diets and cultures, speakers said.

Having a grocery store in the neighbourhood also eases the burden on seniors.

“Me being a senior, the experience of getting groceries is actually really exhausting,” a speaker said through an interpreter.

Residents expressed concerns that whoever buys the market could hike up prices in a neighbourhood where more expensive housing is beginning to supplant single-room occupancies.

“Then it’s going to be a step to gentrify this neighbourhood, which is really, seriously what we don’t want,” one speaker said.

On the other hand, if Sunrise remains intact after the sale, that could also have symbolic implications.

“Having this place hold its ground, it’s like living proof of what’s needed and what can be,” the participant said.

To that end, participants spoke of working together to try to buy the market as a community.

“We’re coming up with more questions than answers, right now,” one person said.

Those questions include what ways various levels of government could help and what that help would look like — they said they hoped those questions would spark a more active discussion moving forward.

One person suggested getting donations from unions to help buy the market.

What the ownership would look like was another active discussion. One speaker cautioned against relying on a chain like T&T Supermarket, which is owned by Loblaw, the largest grocery chain in Canada.

“We want to have that emphasis on keeping it independent,” a speaker said.

Will Gladman, an organizer of the event, who facilitated the larger group discussion, noted community involvement in the future of the Sunrise was a continuing thread in the discussion.

“It provides, obviously, employment opportunities to people in our community too,” he noted.

Several suggested it could be owned and operated by a non-profit. Others coalesced around the idea of a co-operative model.

“Our group shared the ideas around co-op models, but emphasizing that membership structures remain really accessible and, for the community, low-barrier,” a speaker said.

Even if it isn’t a co-op, the speaker added that their table emphasized transparency from whoever comes to own it, and some kind of accountability to the community.

“I was just speaking with someone, and they mentioned that, with some of the non-profits, you don’t feel like you have that sense of community control,” they said.

The town hall event, organizers said, is just the start.

Gladman told the room that part of the point is to ensure that the community is organized to hold politicians accountable when they come forward with positive solutions.

And they aim to continue holding smaller, more focused discussions to try to develop community-led solutions.

As local independent grocers struggle, even as large chains see increasing profit margins, one speaker argued it shouldn’t be limited to the Sunrise Market. They said some small markets have closed with the end of free parking.

“There’s been a total destruction of neighbourhoods at the benefit of real estate developers. And this affects where we live, what we eat,” they said.

“So uniting on a larger scale across the city.”