City of North Vancouver council is taking steps to stop the proliferation of new currency exchange businesses cropping up in prime Londsale Avenue locations. But the move is proving controversial at the council table, prompting accusations it unfairly targets North Vancouver’s Iranian business community.
A split council voted 4-3 July 8 on a motion directing staff to draw up rules limiting the number and/or location of currency exchanges.
The motion came from Coun. Shervin Shahriari who said he counted 14 currency exchanges between 12th and 20th Streets, seven of which are in ground level storefronts.
The types of currency exchanges opening recently aren’t quite the kinds of business where one would go to exchange Canadian Dollars for Pesos or Euros. Instead, they are geared largely toward providing financial services for Iranian immigrants who, because of sanctions against Iran, are not able to use traditional banks to send and receive money from family or businesses in the Islamic Republic.
Shahriari acknowledged how they are used but he added there are simply too many of them opening at a time when council and city staff have been working on a reimagining of Central Lonsdale as a “great street,” with businesses that encourage vibrancy on the streetscape.
“Having so many currency action exchanges that provide niche financial services and do not generate a steady flow of customer traffic does not align with our goals of street vibrancy and business diversity,” he said. “With the overrepresentation and growth of these types of businesses in the City of North Vancouver and their concentration in the Central Lonsdale area, I believe it is time for action.”
In a bid to inject some life into Ambleside and Dundarave, District of West Vancouver council voted earlier this year to draw up a list of businesses that could no longer make up more than 20 per cent of the street level businesses on a given block including currency exchanges, cryptocurrency businesses, doctors’ offices, veterinary clinics, dog groomers and walkers, pharmacies, fitness and esthetics studios, business and commercial schools.
Most of council voiced support for Shahriari’s intended goal of fostering more lively businesses on the city’s main commercial thoroughfare but three council members – Couns. Jessica McIlroy, Angela Girard and Mayor Linda Buchanan – said they could not support a motion that singles out just one type of business.
Girard moved an amendment that would have directed staff to take the matter into consideration in the ongoing work toward the “great street” plans, but Couns. Shahriari, Holly Back, Tony Valente and Don Bell voted the amendment down, arguing council needed to get moving, rather than wait years for that process to complete.
Buchanan specifically called out the Shahriari’s motion for its targeting of Iranian-Canadian business owners.
“They’ve created their homes and they have invested in our community through their businesses,” she said. “So, as the Central Lonsdale area evolves, it is absolutely critical that the needs and objectives of the neighborhood’s Iranian Persian community are reflected in our planning and policy decisions. Focussing solely on them at this time is, in my mind, very, very wrong.”
Shahriari, the first Iranian-born Canadian to be elected in B.C., told Buchanan that he was insulted by her assertion.
“This was not about one race against another… This was about what type of business we want on the street, and what type of vibrancy we want on this strip,” he said. “I’m a member of the Iranian-Canadian community. Are you telling me that I am doing something against my own race here?”
