Chinatown business break-ins up 275% in first half of 2026

Six months after the Vancouver Police Department launched District 5 to serve the Downtown Eastside, Gastown, Hastings Crossing, and Chinatown , business break-ins have soared in Chinatown.

One of the most recent crimes occurred at the Tasty Market & Café on East Georgia Street at Gore Avenue, where a large window remained boarded up Monday.

Police said a suspect smashed his way inside around 7 a.m. on Aug. 10, and was arrested on a second-storey fire escape.

Raymond Chan, 28, was charged with break-and-enter and released from custody 12 hours after his arrest.

In the 600-block of Main Street, Tosi Market, which closed in February following the death of its longtime owner, was broken into in mid-July.

One week after VanSuya served Team Canada during the FIFA World Cup, the Nigerian restaurant on Keefer Street was broken into in a crime captured on surveillance.

VanSuya reported the 4:30 a.m. Canada Day break-in to police and shared security footage on social media, stating the suspects stole most of the liquor from the bar along with other valuables.

“As a newly opened location, this is an incredibly difficult setback,” VanSuya said in an Instagram post. “We’ve poured our hearts, time, and resources into building this space, so something like this is truly devastating”.

Commercial break-ins in Chinatown have increased 275 per cent – from eight in the first six months of 2025 to 30 from January to the end of June this year.

“I was a little surprised to be quite honest,” Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Association president Jordan Eng told Global News in an interview.

Eng said the historic neighbourhood has typically been low on reporting crime.

“They (police) have been telling us to report anything so it can be dealt with, and I guess it’s the efficiency of the reporting that those stats have gone up.”

“It’s because the community is calling to us, they are reporting it,” Const. Megan Lui confirmed Monday.

Lui said more merchants are reporting crimes and it’s driving the spike in break-ins, despite a heightened police presence in the neighbourhood.