"We're closing because of crime": JJ Bean closure due to safety issues
Editor’s note: This article mentions sensitive subject matter, including self-harm, substance misuse, and blood.
One of Vancouver’s most iconic cafes has recently closed a downtown location, and the reason behind the closure is not just due to sales.
In late July, Dished shared the news that JJ Bean would close down its Woodward’s location after 13 years. The cafe officially closed on July 31, but Daily Hive spoke to JJ Bean CEO John Neate to learn more about the reason for the closure.
The location at 146 West Cordova Street has become untenable, says Neate, due largely to rising crime in the area.
“We are closing because of sales, but why are our sales down so much, and what else are we dealing with that have led to that decision? We’re closing because of crime in the area, which is stopping customers from coming in,” Neate tells us in a recent interview.
“We’re closing because our staff are being harassed with dealing with people in our washrooms. We’re dealing with our staff being fearful because they’re coming to work at four in the morning – our bakers – to glass being smashed, doors being open. And we’re not talking once in a while, we’re talking twice every three months that we have broken glass, where we have our staff in fear of what’s happening,” Neate adds.
In addition to frequent vandalism, Neate explains that incidents in which JJ Bean’s staff are threatened or feel unsafe is a regular occurrence here, giving an example from just two weeks ago when an individual came in and reportedly threw a milk jug at an employee, narrowly missing their head.
This person was not a customer, Neate says, but someone who “felt we should have public washrooms.”
“We’re in business to honour people through coffee, customer service – we’re not in business to take that kind of shit,” Neate adds.
He also says he has asked the City of Vancouver a number of times to provide more public washrooms in the area, as the cafe has dealt with a lot of problems in its washrooms over the years.
“There’s very few public washrooms, and so we’ve had a number of issues of people wanting to use our washrooms, and that would be fine if they respected our washrooms,” Neate says. “But when people overdose – we’ve had a death in our washroom – we had someone [self-harm] in our washroom, and we had to close our store down.”
Neate also says that after such incidents, he’s had to pay specialists $1,200 to clean up blood from the washrooms: “I didn’t know there were specialty people that clean up blood, but when you own JJ Bean, that’s what you learn.”
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Neate says that the lack of public washrooms around the city and the resources needed to clean them have put the onus on small business owners.
These safety concerns have also affected how JJ Bean staffs its stores, with more than one person being scheduled for closing shifts not because the work is there, Neate says, but so that they are not left alone at these hours.
“98% of our customers are great. It’s that 2% that makes you remember, ‘Ah, I love my job, but I don’t like this part of it,'” Neate says.
The theft, broken glass, and lack of consequences for the people who are perpetuating this “lawlessness,” as Neate puts it, is a large part of what has pushed him to close the cafe.
“There’s so much sympathy for people that are doing something out of a mental health episode, but where’s the sympathy for the business owner? Where’s the sympathy for my staff that have to deal with this?”
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