Grand Opening & Reno Fundraiser

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‘Grand Opening & Reno Fundraiser’
Spartacus Books commitment to keep up the struggle

By Mike Mowbray

  ‘Sparta­cus Books’ is a famil­iar name in Van­couver, espe­cially amongst folks with rad­ical or pro­gres­sive polit­ical leanings and inter­ests or af­fin­ities con­nected with a vari­ety of so­cial justice move­ments—but the city’s iconic rad­ical book shop, re­source centre, and social space now finds itself in a less famil­iar loc­ation. Having been forced out of its previ­ous loc­ation at 684 E Hastings, Sparta­cus Books re­loc­ated to 3378 Findlay St, a former neigh­bour­hood grocery in the Com­mer­cial Drive/Cedar Cottage area, at the end of May. The change of venue is only the most re­cent in a tumul­tu­ous dec­ade for a rad­ical insti­tu­tion that hopes to keep up the strug­gle through its fifth dec­ade and beyond—and mixed feel­ings aris­ing from the cir­cum­stances of the move, Sparta­cus is en­thusi­astic about throwing open its doors once again in a new locale.

  Sparta­cus Books has been a not­able feature of the polit­ical land­scape in Van­couver since 1973. Founded and oper­ated in its earli­est years by a group with an ec­lec­tic mix of anar­chist, Trotsky­ist, Mao­ist, and other­wise hetero­dox lean­ings, Sparta­cus Books has roots that trail deep into the past of rad­ical so­cial move­ments in this city. Coming down off the hill at SFU at the begin­ning, the store has long sought to be an active force in sup­port of so­cial strug­gle, furn­ish­ing the kinds of ex­plos­ive titles that set a spark in readers’ think­ing and pro­pel move­ments forward.

  Sparta­cus con­tinues to this day to oper­ate as a non­sect­arian rad­ical book­store, re­source centre, and so­cial space—com­pletely volun­teer-run, non-profit, and col­lec­tively man­aged by the same people you see be­hind the counter. The col­lec­ti e seeks to main­tain a safe and wel­com­ing space for all, and to stock a wide-ranging col­lec­tion of titles—not just books, but zines, period­icals, and other info ma­terial—that spans the range of rad­ical strug­gles, move­ments, and ident­ities. Many of the titles from small inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ers simply don’t turn up on shelves any­where else.

  In the past dec­ade, Sparta­cus has per­sisted through more than its fair share of ad­vers­ity, in­clud­ing a 2004 fire that razed the long-time Victory square loc­ation; the store’s entire stock, un­insured against fire after a hefty re­cent rate hike made main­tain­ing a prior policy un­sus­tain­able, went up with it—along with a great deal of history. Despite an out­pour­ing of sup­port, in the form of cash don­ations, used book drop­offs, vol­un­teer ef­forts and word-of-mouth pub­licity that en­abled re-open­ing in short order, avail­able re­sources couldn’t keep the store in the post-fire loc­ation next to the burned-out re­mains of the old one in the face of a tidal wave of gen­trifi­ca­tion then sweep­ing through that part of the Hastings cor­ridor.

  At the 684 E Hastings, selec­ted as a more af­ford­able al­ternat­ive to the out­priced loca­tion near Victory Square, Sparta­cus con­tinued to be dogged by in­secur­ity. Not long after moving in, the entire block was slated for de­moli­tion to make room for the new East End library—a plan that was even­tu­ally scut­tled by broad-based op­posi­tion to the choice of site. Mur­mur­ings amongst the move­ment that saved the Heatley block from de­moli­tion about turn­ing the build­ing into a shared-equity co­operat­ive fell through, and man­age­ment of the property by the city and by Atira gave way to new owners. Soon after, Sparta­cus re­ceived an evic­tion notice stating the land­lords’ in­ten­tion to re­novate the pro­perty, mark­ing the store as one amongst a shock­ing array of non-profit com­mun­ity spaces falling prey to gen­tri­fica­tion and ‘reno­vic­tion’ in Van­couver.

  In a testa­ment to the ten­acity and volume of the com­mun­ities that share ties to Sparta­cus, pop­ular anger and bad pub­licity got that ini­tial evic­tion notice res­cinded. At the time, it was re­ported that the new owners, told col­lective mem­bers that “they weren’t ex­pect­ing such a fuss and were just looking to run a ‘nice place’.” Rabble.ca called Sparta­cus’ ‘un­evic­tion’ fol­lowing the reno­vic­tion saga ‘mirac­ulous’ back in 2013, but it was a temp­or­ary respite. In the end, the wave of gentri­fi­ca­tion caught up with Sparta­cus, as it has—with much more pro­found con­se­quences, at level even of sus­ten­ance and sur­vival—with so many area resid­ents.

  Months later, it became clear that plans to re­novate and raise rents were merely put on pause in re­sponse to com­mun­ity re­ac­tion. Run­ning a ‘nice place’ ap­par­ently means ad­min­ister­ing a fresh row of store­fronts hous­ing busi­nesses of a dif­fer­ent char­acter than those there before. The land­lords soon made clear that Sparta­cus Books had no place in their plans for the build­ing. In­quir­ies about staying on at a much-raised asking rate met a crystal-clear re­sponse: the land­lords want­ed Sparta­cus gone.

  After a frust­rat­ing search for new ac­com­mod­ations (a tough go in a city where small com­mer­cial spaces with even a hint of cent­ral­ity rout­ine­ly com­mand several thou­sand dollars a month), the Sparta­cus col­lective settled on the new Findlay St loc­ation at Com­mer­cial & 18th—a larger space, albeit at sig­nif­ic­antly higher cost, and at a sig­nif­ic­ant dist­ance from the store’s long­time neigh­bour­hood.

  Folks in the col­lective met the pro­spect of a move away from the DTES with pro­found­ly mixed feel­ings. The neigh­bour­hood had been Sparta­cus’ home for over 40 years, and a place in which the space and the col­lective had de­vel­oped numer­ous ties of solid­ar­ity, amd molded itself in small but sig­nif­ic­ant ways to fit the needs of local resid­ents—free public-access com­put­ers, the ‘Peoples Phone’ in oper­ation 24/7 out­side for the use of those without ac­cess to a phone line, an ac­ces­sible wash­room without the locked door typical of most busi­nesses, and an open and wel­com­ing at­ti­tude.

  While folks are both re­lieved that the 41st year of Spartacus’ oper­ations will not be its last and ex­cited at the bubbling poten­tial of the new space, the move—so clearly con­nected with the gentri­fi­ca­tion of the city’s last neigh­bour­hood af­ford­able to poor folks—also gave rise to sad­ness, anger, a sense of loss and a com­mit­ment to keep up the strug­gle against gentri­fi­ca­tion from the new loc­ation.

  After a mara­thon one-day move in late May, with a mob of volun­teers sharing the load, col­lective members have been hard at work put­ting things to­gether at the new space—and it’s really coming to­gether. One of the most pro­min­ent features of the new space is its greater cap­acity to ac­com­mod­ate events from movie screen­ings, read­ings and mus­ical per­form­ances to organ­izing meet­ings, talks, book clubs and more—and folks hope to be able to make good use of that in ways that make an easy-to-get to (if some­what out-of-the-way) loc­ation a bust­ling destin­ation.

  With the books shelved, a comfy new lounge area set up for folks to per­use their finds, so­cial­ize, talk shop and organ­ize, and several dec­ades’ activ­ist history liven­ing up the previ­ously bare white walls of the new digs, Sparta­cus looks for­ward to wel­com­ing famil­iar faces and new ones at the new loc­ation. Any day of the week is a good time to stop by—but July 12th is a date of note, as the store will be host­ing a ‘Grand Opening & Reno Fund­raiser’ from 10am to 1pm at 3378 Findlay St, in­clud­ing a range of activ­ities for folks of all ages, musical jam, Sparty info table, cheap books … and the un­veil­ing of a brand new sign to an­nounce Sparta­cus Books’ famil­iar name to a soon-to-be-famil­iar locale.