Vancouver’s upcoming
Chinese New Year Parade
will go ahead as planned
on Feb. 14, 2010 — the
second day of the Winter
Olympic Games — despite
Chinatown’s nearness to
Olympic venues and
routes.
Parade organizers
changed the route and
gave the 36th annual
parade an
earlier-than-usual start
to accommodate Olympic
roadblocks — and had
some crucial luck with
Olympic scheduling.
“The Chinese Gods
were smiling on the
parade because there are
no events at GM Place on
that day. If there were,
we couldn’t have done
the parade,” Muriel
Honey, manager of films
and special events for
the City of Vancouver,
said Tuesday.
GM Place and B.C.
Place, both Olympic
venues, are a few blocks
from the parade’s route
through Chinatown.
Honey said that
police would have been
unable to cope with tens
of thousands of
spectators watching the
Chinese New Year’s
Parade plus 17,000
Olympic ticket-holders
heading to GM Place for
a hockey game.
The 36th annual
parade will start at
9:30 a.m. The parade has
to be off Pender Street
by 11 a.m. — an hour
before the traditional
start time — because it
connects to Hastings
Street, a key Olympic
transportation route,
which must be kept open,
said Honey.
The parade will begin
at Taylor and Abbott
Streets and proceed
eastbound on Pender
Street, southbound on
Gore Street and then
westbound on Keefer
Street. In an Olympic
twist, the parade will
continue up the Keefer
Steps to the downtown
“Olympic Live Site” at
Georgia and Hamilton
Streets, where
spectators and Olympic
tourists will be able to
watch traditional
dancing lions and other
parade performers.
“The Olympic exposure
will be wonderful for
the parade,” said Honey.
