Controversial Edmonton Sun editorial sparks Twitter firestorm

Rogers Place helping Edmonton take back the night

Article Report an error Wednesday evening I am sitting in one of my favourite downtown spots, Bodega Tapas & Wine Bar at Sabor. It's an hour before the Oilers' first game of the season in the spanking-new Rogers Place just up the street.

edmontonsun.com

This piece by Graham Hicks (usually a food critic) in the Edmonton Sun came out yesterday and sparked a Twitter firestorm. Here are my own problems with it:

• The whole thing about "now there are normal people downtown" thing is pretty gross (that's what he got the most fire for).

• The "take back the night" headline is nabbed from a yearly anti-sexual-assault demonstration, which has the (unintended? deliberate? ) effect of suggesting that women are more likely to be sexually assaulted by homeless people than by so-called "normal people", which is just so...oh, brother.

• The idea that downtown Edmonton was a scary place before the arena came in and saved everything really annoys me as a downtown resident. I'm a woman, and I've been walking around alone at all hours for years downtown and have never had any issue with it. I'm actually happy to see even more different kinds of people on our streets with the arrival of the arena, but downtown Edmonton has been a great place to be at night for years already. So I'm not sure what Hicks thinks they're "taking back".

• Also, and relatedly? I get how it would feel weird to suburbanites to see the occasional homeless person when they're not used to it from their own neighbourhoods, but that doesn't make homeless people automatically scary. The "scariest" thing a homeless person's ever done to me in years and years of walking around downtown by myself is ask me for spare change. And that's generally limited to the daytime hours.

• And as for drunk people staggering around on our streets? The arena is cool and all, don't get me wrong, but I really really doubt it's going to lower the percentage of those. ;)