Stewart said he and his wife, Jeanette Ashe, and their small puppy Fergus were in the Swirl Wine Store at 1185 Mainland St. when a white man believed to be in his late 40s or early 50s stepped in front of the mayor at a wine display near the back of the store.
“I noticed somebody get really close to me and he reached right in front of me [for a bottle of wine] oddly, but I just thought this person was rude and I didn’t think much about it,” Stewart told Glacier Media Monday.
“But then he started harassing me verbally. I didn’t quite catch it at first, and then I did. He noticed Jeanette was with me and he started to harass her, which was really off-putting.”
The mayor said the man, who he described as "a normal Yaletown kind of looking dude” and about five-foot-10 inches tall, was upset about homeless people and visible drug use in the streets and called him "an embarrassment to the city."
He made similar comments to his wife and implied that she was also at fault for Vancouver’s poverty problems. His wife is the director of the Institute for Ethics and Global Justice at Douglas College.
“He was just poor bashing — reinforcing the stigma and all that,” he said. “He was clear-minded. He had shopping bags, and had been to another local boutique — which is expensive — so he’s not poor himself, I wouldn’t think.”
The mayor said he told the man to leave them alone, but he refused and challenged him to go outside. At one point, Stewart said, he stepped in between the man and Ashe, who was holding the couple’s dog, and that’s when the man touched his elbow.
Stewart said he warned the man three times to back off before he called police. The man waited outside the store until officers arrived and provided them with a statement. Stewart said he also provided police with a statement.
'A little rattled'
Officers, he added, seized video from the store, which had customers inside at the time of the incident. The mayor said he and his wife had previously visited the store, where staff would provide treats for their dog.
“We were a little rattled,” said Stewart, who lives a couple blocks from the store. “You always think, ‘Did we do the right thing?’ And I’m sure we did because, in the end, we were enjoying our Saturday afternoon and he was the one who decided to initiate and provoke.”
Added Stewart: “He was really angry and the fact he wouldn’t leave us alone and waited outside the store was quite concerning.”
Sgt. Steve Addison, a VPD media relations officer, said in an email Monday that police responded to a 9-1-1 call Saturday afternoon to a liquor store in Yaletown. Addison said officers conducted a thorough investigation and spoke with all parties involved, including witnesses.
“The parties went their separate ways after speaking with police,” he said. “The matter remains under investigation and I won’t speculate on the cause or the outcome of the investigation.”
Addison wouldn’t confirm whether the incident involved the mayor, but Stewart said he notified Police Chief Adam Palmer about the incident. The mayor, who doubles as chairperson of the Vancouver Police Board, said he didn’t know how the incident got leaked to the media over the weekend.
“For privacy reasons, we typically would not confirm the identity of any person — complainant, witness, or subject of complaint — unless charges are laid against that person, so we won’t be identifying any of the people involved in this incident,” Addison said.
The mayor and councillors took a lot of heat in October 2020 from Yaletown residents concerned about the increase in homelessness, drug activity and crime in their neighbourhood.
The comments — which were a mix of passionate and angry pleas for action — came during a hearing to allow a supervised injection site to open at 1101 Seymour St., on the edge of Yaletown.
The mayor wouldn’t speculate whether the incident Saturday was connected to that hearing.
Stewart was elected in 2018 and said the interactions he’s had with citizens have been “99 per cent positive.” The other one per cent, he added, are people who are mostly wealthy and have complaints about his leadership.
“That’s part of the job, but this [incident on Saturday] is way over that line,” he said.
Stewart said he has not requested increased security as a result of Saturday’s run-in with the man. When he served as an NDP MP, he said, he was given training on how to de-escalate exchanges with angry people, but to call police when in doubt.
“I don’t see any change to my habits,” said the mayor, who is a frequent transit user and walks to city hall.
Elected officials, police targeted
The incident involving the mayor and his wife comes two weeks after Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum said he had his foot run over outside a Save-On Foods store. Police continue to investigate the incident.
The two incidents are not unprecedented in municipal politics, with current and former politicians in Vancouver the victims of violence and threats.
Former mayor Sam Sullivan had a two-litre jug of Coke poured on his head during a nomination race in 2008 to become his party’s mayoral candidate.
At least one former city councillor from the previous administration, whom Glacier Media has chosen not to name, required a restraining order against an individual who verbally and physically attacked the former elected official.
In 2016, then-councillor Kerry Jang also had to have a security plan in place after being the target of online personal attacks and receiving threats from a person upset with the city’s crackdown on marijuana shops.
In July 2020, councillors Melissa De Genova and Sarah Kirby-Yung, whose spouses are Vancouver police officers, were both targeted in verbal attacks via social media.
“These have included calls for me to commit suicide and threats of violence to me and my family,” she told Glacier Media in an email at the time. “l am targeted because of my husband’s employment as a police officer. I suspect the ways I have been targeted are because I am a woman.”
Meanwhile, at the federal level, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau had gravel thrown at him during a recent campaign stop, and People's Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier had a man crack an egg on his head.
Police have also been targeted in various incidents over the last month.
In Victoria on Saturday, Police Chief Del Manak had liquid poured on him while attending a memorial for Chantel Moore, a B.C. Indigenous woman who was killed by New Brunswick police last year during a wellness check.
Victoria police said in a news release that Manak was not “physically harmed.” Five people were arrested after the incident, which was captured on video. Police continue to investigate.
In Vancouver, the VPD reported earlier this month that 11 of its officers were injured or assaulted while responding to calls during the Labour Day weekend.
The spate of injuries that weekend follows a larger trend of officers being assaulted in Vancouver, Addison said.
Between January and July, 108 police officers were assaulted in the city — a 64 per cent increase from 2018, according to Addison, who told reporters Sept. 8 that “every police officer understands the dangers and risks associated with their work. However, we’re concerned by the number of people who now seem emboldened and feel entitled to assault officers and put their lives at risk.”
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