The goods are cheap and the setting unpretentious.
But every Sunday for the past four years, buyers and sellers have showed up at the Downtown Eastside Street Market, a city-sanctioned weekend event at Pigeon Park where vendors sell goods such as paperbacks, clothing, shoes and vinyl record albums.
The market is an officially approved outlet for “binners” – people who salvage items from garbage bins and alleyways across the city for potential sale. Shown here: Chinese cassette tapes.
Those goods include TV remotes and VHS tapes – prized by neighbourhood residents whose rental rooms have older-model televisions with VCRs.
Police routinely patrol the event to keep an eye out for stolen goods such as bicycles or electronics.
By providing a safe, legal space for neighbourhood residents to sell such goods, the market supports economic independence and “microentrepreneurialism,” supporters say. Shown here: a rug depicting the Last Supper.
The market is backed by groups that include the Central City Foundation, which last year provided a $25,000 grant for tables, tents and cleaning supplies.
An estimated 200 to 300 vendors show up every Sunday, organizers say. Shown here: A rifle case.
But the market operates only one day a week. That means people who sell their goods on other days, unless they have a permit, are breaking the law. Shown here: pregnancy tests.
Vancouver-based advocacy group Pivot Legal is challenging the city’s bylaw against street vending, saying it violates individuals’ right to security under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.