News and Features
The Illegal Drug Trade and High Real Estate Prices
By Frances Bula published Sep 1, 2011
A look at how British Columbia's drug economy affects the housing market
THE 1930s-STYLE HOME—a well-maintained, nondescript two-level on West 12th near Trimble—had been owned by a succession of engineers and built to withstand earthquakes. It fit in nicely on the street. Yet three weeks after Betty Yan and her husband took possession, they started tearing the place apart. They had interior walls removed, the fireplace dismantled, and the main staircase redone—twice. They also added a bathroom. On the outside, they landscaped the yard three or four times, redid the front porch, took it down again. It was like minor Hollywood celebrities had invaded West Point Grey.
Joan Bryans was one of many neighbours who thought it weird how much work the family was doing—rumour pegged the renovation at $800,000, almost half the purchase price of $1.776 million. “It was very obvious that it was outrageously unnecessary.” Not everyone felt so strongly. “The house did need a little updating,” recalls the seller, an about-to-retire engineer at the City of Vancouver. “So the only thing I thought was a little funny was that they took so long to renovate.”
In April 2009, news broke that Yan had been found shot dead in her Mercedes in a Richmond parking lot. Stories after her death described her as a ruthless and violent loan shark who, after coming to Canada as a refugee in the late 1980s, connected with the Big Circle Boys gang. The gang had branched out from drug trafficking into many other ventures, legal and illegal. Among its enterprises, according to police: loan-sharking, human smuggling, money and goods counterfeiting, and exporting stolen cars.
