Barber shop that left Chinatown due to crime destroyed in suspicious Vancouver fire – BC [Video]

The owner of a Vancouver barber shop who moved out of Chinatown due to street crime is now facing a major setback.

Bootleg Barbers was one of several businesses destroyed by a suspicious fire on Hastings Street near Nanaimo Street last week.

Owner Dustin Grant said a friend called him early last Wednesday to warn him the iconic Dayton Boots store, where his shop is located, was on fire.

“It was crazy, there must have been 10 fire trucks, 40 or 50 firemen,” he said.

“I was thinking that everything I had built over the last 12 and a half years was going up in smoke right in front of my face.”

Grant had just moved the business back to the Hastings Street location in December, after a two-year stint in Chinatown, where he had hoped to help revitalize the neighbourhood.

He decided to move out of that neighbourhoodbecause clients told him they no longer felt safe in the …