I wish someone had videotaped this.
http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vanc...f10ed29&page=1
House-wrecker bash turns riotous
Police and punkers clash during fiery party at low-rent 'band' houses
Jeff Lee
Vancouver Sun
Monday, September 27, 2004
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CREDIT: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun
Andy McGhee said he organized the party to ruin the houses, which are owned by a developer.
VANCOUVER - A punk-rock "house-wrecking" party for three dilapidated heritage houses on Vancouver's east side turned into a massive altercation Saturday night that included the police riot squad being called out.
By the time the nearly 200 youths had been dispersed, one house had been set on fire, a neighbour's house was damaged and dozens of people had been arrested by officers who chased crowds through the neighbouring Mount Pleasant area.
Vancouver police didn't have anyone on staff over the weekend to answer reporters' questions about what had happened, and no one returned phone calls. But a brief media message recorded by the department at 5 a.m. Sunday said police had to call its "crowd-control unit" around midnight after youths began throwing beer bottles at officers.
The incident involved three houses near the corner of Main Street and 12th Avenue. The three houses, all built about 1906 as working-class homes and listed on the city's register of heritage buildings, had recently been sold to a developer who amalgamated several properties.
The houses, at 216 E. 12th Ave, and 2814 and 2818 Watson Street, had long been low-income rental properties. According to residents, they were slated for demolition by the new owners.
But the party, which was apparently advertised on the Internet and drew punk-rock bands from as far away as Seattle, quickly got out of hand, with youths pulling siding off one house and starting a bonfire in the middle of Watson Street, a narrow alley just east of Main Street.
Others began to carry burning brands into the house at 216 E. 12th Avenue, setting it on fire while a heavy-metal band was still playing inside.
"We were in there playing, and the house was going up around us," said Jay "Terro Gnome" Paul, a member of the "black metal" band called Descention. "All the punks and metalheads were in on this. It was supposed to be a house-wrecking party, but they also set it on fire."
By the time the house was on fire, police had already called out the crowd-control unit, according to Teran Britto, a former resident of one of the Watson Street houses. Britto, who had moved out a day earlier, said the party was supposed to be a farewell to what had been low-rent accommodations for struggling musicians.
Officers showed up to tell revellers to keep the party off the streets, but were quickly pelted with beer bottles.
They quickly returned with the crowd-control unit. So many officers were pulled in that Richmond RCMP had to divert five officers to cover the south side of Vancouver under a resource-sharing agreement.
"As soon as I saw the shotguns and teargas and Taser guns, I got the f--- out of there," Britto said. "I didn't want to get arrested."
Officers marched down Watson Street thumping their shields to disperse the crowd, and were pelted with bottles. When the youths finally left, they dispersed down nearby streets and alleys, overturning several large garbage containers. According to several witnesses, police carted away 20 to 40 people, but the information couldn't be verified because no one from the police department returned calls.
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CREDIT: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun
Neighbour Phyllis Collins surveys the damage the day after the Saturday-night riot.
CREDIT: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun
Rob Pinhead (left), Corpus Vile (centre) and Jay Paul's band, Descention, was playing at a party at 216 E. 12th Sunday night. The party got out of hand when someone set the house on fire.
The recorded message for media incorrectly indicated that two houses were engulfed in flames and that the incident took place in the 200-block of East 5th. It said police made some arrests but gave no other details.
Capt. Rob Jones-Cook, a spokesman for the Vancouver fire department, said firefighters quickly put out the fire, which extensively damaged one house. He said 30 firefighters and eight trucks were diverted to the incident.
At one point prior to the fire, people began throwing things out the front window of the house, breaking the windows of an elderly woman's home next door.
Phyllis Collins, 83, said she was warned by one of the tenants, Andy McGhee, that they intended to have a raucous party, but she didn't think it would result in her own home, at 218 E. 12th Ave., being damaged. She said she wasn't concerned about the party, but when it got out of hand, she escaped to a neighbour's apartment across the street.
Collins, who grew up in the home and has lived there for the last 30 years after her mother died, said she sold it to the same developer and will have to leave within a year.
"For a while I thought my home was going to catch on fire as well," said Collins, looking at two broken side windows on her porch. "Now, who's going to repair that?"
McGhee said in an interview he organized the party with the intention of wrecking the houses since they were now owned by a "faceless corporation" and were going to be torn down.
Sporting a spiky blue and black Mohawk haircut, McGhee apologized for the damage to Collins' house, and said he will compensate her.
But he was unapologetic about the plan to destroy the rental properties.
"Yeah, why not, man?" he asked. "Nobody got hurt. It's better to take it out on an old building owned by some faceless corporation that is going to tear it down anyway, than on someone."
McGhee said the houses were rented for between $600 and $750 a month, and were convenient and cheap. Up to a dozen people lived between the three houses.
McGhee said he was angry that he'd been evicted by the new owners.
"Ten people got kicked out, and I think what happened was people got fed up with the corporatization and gentrification of the neighbourhood."
McGhee said the renters never had trouble with the police before, and felt the police response was an overreaction. "We were just having some fun."
Britto blamed others for the riot, saying the current residents of the three buildings were only intent on a party, and not on getting into an altercation with police.
"Anybody who caused this problem wasn't from the neighbourhood and didn't live here. We were all having a party, but it was punks from Seattle who were doing the worst."
jefflee@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2004
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