If you've driven anywhere in Vancouver this week you've no doubt noticed the impact of the small-but-vocal Save Old Growth protest group who have once again decided to snarl traffic to bring attention to their cause.
What you may not have noticed was that they've spray painted buildings up and down Main Street, most notably the recently-refurbished heritage property, the Heritage Hall at 15th Avenue.
The words "Save Old Growth" showed up on a few of the outer stone walls of the building over the weekend and were gone by Monday (June 13) afternoon. However, in that short span of time, they were a public symbol of the lengths that this group will go in order to drive people away from supporting them.
The most obvious (and common) way they've alienated the general public is the aforementioned traffic-snarling. Aside from ticking off anyone who needs to go somewhere in Vancouver, perhaps the worst result of this action is that they're ensuring far more carbon is being emitted due to tens of thousands of cars idling on our freeways and bridges while the police figure out how to remove the protesters who have glued themselves to these surfaces.
You may also recall how they recently littered Main Street (literally) with hundreds of paper flyers which blew around the roadway and sidewalks.
A representative from the Heritage Hall tells me that the message they'd like to send to any group looking to tag their building to further their cause is "No thank you," and that the chemicals used by their vendor, Goodbye Graffiti, are "hard on the stone," of the 106-year-old building which is currently operated by a non-profit society.
The Save Old Growth group did not respond to my request for comment in which I sent them a few questions including, "How does placing graffiti on a heritage building help you achieve your goal?"
They also did not respond to: "Collectively, how stupid are the members of your group on a scale from 1 to Really Stupid?"
And, lastly, nobody from the Save Old Growth group provided an answer to my question "Are you not concerned that actions like this will further alienate the population that you are already inconveniencing with your other actions? The net result of many of your strategies seems to be counter to what you might want to achieve, which I imagine is getting more people involved in your movement as opposed to having the wider population view you as a bunch of dim-witted goons who have run out of ideas."
