RUSS: Forget vape shops — Vancouver needs more craft breweries

Vancouver’s craft breweries are fading, and that is very sad. Even worse, the proliferation of 24/7 vape shops are replacing them. 

The loss of breweries means fewer third-spaces, and the decline of a healthy entrepreneurial spirit. Vape shops are a form of retail so bleak that they may as well have been focus-grouped by debt collectors. 

A brewery is a social institution, while a vape shop is an addiction kiosk with LED lights. 

There was always more to craft breweries than merely beer. Whole swathes of East Vancouver were transformed by them. Where once there were decaying, unused industrial lots and auto repair shops, there are now Brassneck, 33 Acres, and Main Street Brewing Co.

Mount Pleasant's own beer revival received a huge boost in 2013 when the province permitted the creation of tasting rooms. It turned whole, formerly unremarkable blocks into social hubs for young people and others. 

Critics called it gentrification, and this much is true. Luckily, not all gentrification is bad. People gathering for pints, pizzas, a first date, a trivia night, a birthday party, or a performance by a local band are worth the change. Unlike many real estate developments that pledge to bring “vibrancy” to a neighbourhood, breweries actually made good on their promise. 

Vancouver, an expensive and somewhat emotionally frigid city, can never have enough third-spaces. Social connections have become very thin in North America, and British Columbia is hardly an exception. Spots where locals can linger are key to building social trust and creating familiarities. 

A third-space is neither an office or a shoebox condo. It is where creatives can thrive and find audiences, and families can drag their children to for an outing. These spaces create a social life that does not require “curated experiences”, depending on who is renting it. 

Those within the craft brewery industry itself have said that leaning into food and hosting events is crucial to a successful brand. 

Beyond marketing, Vancouver’s craft breweries are bound up in pleasant memories. Every pint tastes like the pre-pandemic era of cheaper money, lower interest rates, and a healthier climate for aspiring business owners. Was it all built on unsustainable fiscal policy? Perhaps. But, that does not invalidate the improvements made to Vancouver because of that cheap money. 

Sixteen years after the golden age of Canada’s craft breweries, they are quickly falling off the map. Commercial rents have hiked along with residential rates, driving out both entrepreneurs and customers alike. Debt-servicing costs are unsustainable for many businesses. 

Younger people are also consuming less alcohol. Gen Z are not as interested in going out to drink, preferring canned cocktails and zero-proof substitutes. The pandemic turned half a generation into unnatural homebodies, puffing away on their disposable vapes while being chronically online. 

Statistics Canada has reported the biggest annual drop in alcohol sales in the two decades. If one is a joyless prude, there might be a case to celebrate sobriety were it not for the fact that younger Canadians are simply replacing alcohol with nicotine (an energizing substance that drives creativity and innovation).  

In London, Ontario, local officials have reported that teens are so addicted to increasingly potent vapes that they are using cigarettes to taper off. Ironically, vapes are heavily marketed as a smoking cessation tool. 

The new retail environment built around vaping addiction is also grotesque, and the 24/7 vape shops that colonize prime storefronts are downright ugly both inside and out. 

To be clear, these are not the vape shops that started up in the 2010s alongside craft breweries, operated by the responsible tradesmen of their craft who adhered to the law, selling heavy, reusable ones made of metal, rather than cheap, mass-produced ones filled with micro-plastics. 

Their new counterparts are the consummate slop merchants, selling high-sugar snacks and glass bongs alongside their heavily carcinogenic plastic vapes. These shops are not confined to Canadian streets, and have emerged across the United States and Great Britain as well. 

In Britain, the police have mounted raids against these vape shops, as well as suspect barbershops and mini-marts, on the basis that they are laundering money and have links to organized crime. Is there any good reason to suspect that the situation is much different here in Vancouver? 

Therefore, lament the loss of the breweries and the rise of the vape shops. The former is a place where responsible adults can enjoy beverages that have been tried and tested for centuries as a relatively harmless inebriant and social glue. The latter sells dependence and exploits the young. 

Vancouver is not made better by the new 24/7 nicotine marts, but it is vastly improved by third-spaces where people can build connections and enjoy a warm summer evening on a patio over a lager or IPA. 

There is no magic wand that can make the lost breweries reappear, and the vape marts that replaced them crumble into dust. However, Vancouverites and the residents of other BC cities can make better choices about which businesses they give their money to. 

Geoff Russ is Editor-at-Large of Without Diminishment and contributor to the National Post.