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Black roots run deep in community Ron Nicholson, vicepresident of the B.C. Black History Awareness Society, gets cozy with the statue of Sir James Douglas at Government House. The Victoria founder and first governor of the Colony of British Columbia has black heritage, said Nicholson, who is helping celebrate Black History Month here this month. See story, page A3. Sharon Tiffin/News staff
Smoked-out businesses land on their feet Fort Street shops rebound after fire Daniel Palmer News staff
It was an otherwise unremarkable Monday morning when a kitchen fire broke out at A Taste of India restaurant at 768 Fort St.,
pouring smoke through the ceiling into two adjacent businesses. The Nov. 18 fire forced Oscar & Libby’s owner Teri Hustins to scramble for an alternative storefront just as as the lucrative Christmas season approached. “The same landlord happened to have an empty space across the street and he rolled us into this location within five days,” said
Hustins from her new shop at 795 Fort St. “If I’d lost Christmas, that would have been 25 per cent of my business for the year.” Vy Nguyen, whose family operates Pho Vy Vietnamese restaurant, said the fire could have been disastrous for their businesses, but a fortuitous arrangement with a nearby restaurant is keeping them afloat.
The owner of Saigon Harbour (1012 Blanshard St.) had already been planning to temporarily close the restaurant while visiting Vietnam. When Pho Vy was forced to close, the vacant restaurant provided an ideal opportunity, Nguyen said. “We’ve been pretty steady, and we’ve been getting more and more
of our regular customers here,” she said. “We’ll be moving back to Fort Street within a few months, hopefully.” Restoration work on the building is lagging as insurance companies continue their assessments, said landlord Jason Cheung.
PLEASE SEE:
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