For the past year, Linda Ly has operated her nail salon, Onyx Aesthetics Studio, four floors above street level in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES).
She used to run her business out of a ground-floor studio on Abbott Street, but says she relocated after enduring repeated vandalism and harassment.
“We got broken into four times, and within a six-month span, we probably called the police over 100 times,” she told CBC News.
“We are now upstairs … [our clients] have to be buzzed in,” she said of her new location on Carrall Street. The move has provided reprieve from vandalism, but Ly says she still witnesses the ongoing struggles in the neighbourhood.
Recently though, the business owner has noticed a change in the area.