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.

“Even with having more officers especially on foot patrol, they’re more visible, people do come to us especially when were on foot patrols,” Lui said. “They ask for help, they say Hey, my restaurant or my business was broken into earlier and that’s sometimes how we are getting the increased reports.”

Police said the rest of District 5 and the Strathcona neighborhood has not seen a similar increase in break-ins and the trend appears to be concentrated in Chinatown.

While Baldylox Vintage’s storefront on East Pender Street was shattered in April, owner Alex Chang said things have changed since.

“Fingers crossed, knock on wood, hasn’t been vandalized nor have we been broken into over the past several months,” Chang told Global News.

Chang said he’s also connected with the street community and has some good allies on the block.

“There’s a lot of people that kind of help me like, look out and they like, kind of, sort of, protect the space as well.”