Vancouver Magazine
Best Thing I Ate All Week: (Gluten-Free!) Fried Chicken from Maxine’s Cafe and Bar
A One-Day Congee Pop-Up Is Coming to Chinatown
Anh and Chi Teams Up With Fresh Prep, Making Our Foodie Dreams Come True
A Radical Idea: Celebrate Robbie Burns With These 3 Made-in-BC Single Malts
Wine Collab of the Week: A Red Wine for Overthinkers Who Love Curry
Dry January Mocktail Recipe: Archer’s Rhubarb Sour
Last Chance! Join Us at VanMag’s 2023 Power 50 Party
5 Things to Do in Vancouver This Week (January 23-29)
Vancouver Foundation: Fulfilling a Dream
The Ultimate Winter Staycation Guide 2023: 6 Great Places to Explore in B.C.
B.C. Winter Staycation Guide 2023: 48 Hours in Tofino
B.C. Winter Staycation Guide 2023: Everything You Need to Know About Whistler’s Creekside
5 Super-Affordable Wedding Venues in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley
PSA: Please Do Not Buy These 3 Things for Valentine’s Day
10 Great Sweats to Honour International Sweatpants Day
It’s been a year of notoriety for Canada’s cities. The world continues to be obsessed with the antics of Toronto’s Rob Ford: what he put in his pipe, whose posterior he grabbed, whether he dines in or out. And the rotating cast of characters in Montreal’s mayoral chair, one after another being dragged down by corruption charges, makes American Hustle look like community theatre.
In Vancouver, meanwhile, the focus of everyone from Fox News to London’s Daily Mail was doorknobs: not our elected officials, but those antiquated devices we use to get from one room to the next. As of this month, the knob is banned from all future construction projects, the result of building code changes passed by Vancouver city council last September.
The driver is accessibility. According to the City, over 15 percent of Vancouver residents have some sort of disability or mobility restriction, and lever-operated door handles can easily be used with one hand. A traditional doorknob cannot-or often requires more “tight grasping or wrist twisting.”While the change affects only new construction, Vancouver is the only city in Canada with its own building code, and shifts here are often seen as a harbinger of standards to come in the industry. The death knell for the doorknob (already vanishing from City Hall) is nigh.