Marine Avenue’s Forest Bistro and Lounge was hit by pink and white graffiti early Saturday morning (March 4). Westview Centre Motel and 7-Eleven were also spray-painted with similar scrawls of paint.
Forest Bistro owner, chef and operator John D. Walls bought the building three years ago and has slowly transitioned the space from a sometimes dangerous dive bar to a brunch, fine-dining late-night music venue.
“I don’t believe this is necessarily targeted, since the vandalism was also found elsewhere,” said Walls. “Since opening the bistro, our bathroom has been trashed five times and a huge window in the restaurant has been broken.”
Walls said he feels that this may be part of a backlash for the business shifting the genre of the venue from a rough spot to a classy joint.
“We are working hard to create a safe space for all patrons,” said Walls. “I moved here seven years ago, for the quality of life. This place [Powell River] has so much potential, and I love living here.”
But Walls also thinks there is a resistance to change.
“This restaurant/late-night venue attracts people from all different demographics, and so we want to create an atmosphere of the bistro being a safe place for everyone,” he said.
He doesn’t know how much it will cost to remove the graffiti, but it will take some time and work. He is working with the RCMP to find out who the culprit is.
“I have a feeling the person probably has mental health issues,” said Walls. “We are joining the BarWatch program, which is a unified group of 40 or so venues across BC.
“It’s another layer of deterrent, if a person gets banned from the Forest Bistro and Lounge, other venues taking part in the program will know that fact.”
At the moment the business is scaling back on its late night hours, but hopes to resume opening until 2 am on weekends at some point.
“I’m a fine-dining chef who bought a dive bar,” laughs Walls.
According to his social media post, “at 5 am Saturday morning, a young-ish male, 20 to 30 years old, parked his car a bit down Marine and quite deliberately vandalized our building with some pretty pink spray paint.”
He went on to say “this is going to be a hefty clean-up job so if you have any information on who it might be, to help us recoup the cleanup costs, please call the RCMP in reference to case file 2023-998."
