On the afternoon of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals in Vancouver, I walked to the Canada Revenue Agency on Pender Street to pay my monthly tax installment.
I wondered: Should I go home to watch the game, or should I go to one of my client’s restaurants to watch it and “take in the atmosphere?”
The number of mostly drunk 22-year-olds walking past the CRA’s office, many blocks away from the arena, convinced me that home was the wiser choice that night.
The next morning, after the riot, there were shards of broken glass as far as the eye could see at “ground zero,” where the rioters had kicked in store windows and looted places such as The Bay, Sears and London Drugs. But they also vandalized smaller stores, including Swimwear Inc., taking whatever they had. In that case, at least $70,000 worth of inventory and all the display mannequins.
There are hundreds of issues that residents of Metro Vancouver are struggling with during this time of embarrassment and outrage.
Let me identify two issues that might be of greatest concern to small businesses:
The first is insurance.
A riot was declared by police the night of June 15. Is there insurance available for damage caused by a riot once the “Riot Act” has been read? Or will each business owner’s insurance policy not cover looting and vandalism?
If you owned one of the cars damaged or destroyed by the rioters, you’re covered, but only if you have comprehensive insurance from ICBC or a private insurer. ICBC’s comprehensive insurance policy specifically covers “civil commotion or riots,” in addition to damage resulting from theft, fire, vandalism, earthquakes and “collisions with wild animals.”
Residents without this type of comprehensive coverage will have no insurance for damage to, or destruction of, their cars that night.
What about the stores that were looted?
The good news was delivered by Lindsay Olson, vice-president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada. By and large, the language contained in most insurance policies that retail business would likely have taken out for fire, theft and vandalism would normally cover losses from damage and looting that occurred during the riot. It would, of course, depend on the individual insurance policies.
As for the broken windows, retailers must have obtained separate “plate glass insurance.” Wherever you are in Canada, now might be a good time to revisit your company's insurance policy to see what’s covered and what’s not. If a riot can happen in a place like Vancouver, it can happen anywhere. I've seen the aftermath of a riot, and you don’t want this to happen to your city. Or to your business.
The second issue of interest to small businesses, and everyone else for that matter, is catching the rioters.
The most vivid image I can recall from the TV coverage is the scores of people taking photographs and videos with their celphones. These pictures and videos have been posted to Facebook and other sites for “friends” to tag or otherwise identify. There are at least a dozen Facebook pages with, collectively, hundreds of thousands of “fans” exposing the identity of the rioters.
Some individuals have actually posted how many cars they burned and the number of stores they looted on their personal Facebook pages, with the comments below often suggesting “take this down you idiot, it's evidence,” or “thanks I’ve just taken a screen shot of your admission and I’m sending it to the police.”
