It wasnt that the owners had absconded in the night abandoning the Denman Street business theyd run for more than 30 years that got the neighbourhoods attention.
It was the hostages. About 40 or so left to a slow death, imprisoned in a Vietnamese restaurant, itself trapped in a 1980s time warp.
The proprietors of Vina Vietnamese Cuisine took off hastily one weekend in June, leaving behind spent McDonalds cups, an open copy of a Business Exchange flyer, and one of those grapevine sculptures carved out of jade. Someone had knocked over a black metal-framed chair on the way out. But it wasnt until the dozens of houseplants that lined the large picture windows began to wither, about three weeks ago, that the community took notice, and then action.
First, a hand-written letter appeared on the door urging concerned citizens to come to their aid. It directed passersby tocontact leasing agent Bob Chang, whose number advertised the rental opportunity.
Chang said he got about six or eight calls and told everyone the same thing: with several different properties to manage all over town he didnt have time to come and water the plants.
He couldnt put them out on the street because someone might trip over one of the small, spiky snake plants or walk into a towering Dracaena and sue. Besides, they werent his, they belonged to the restaurants former owners, wherever they were.
Whats more important, people or plants? he told them. Ive got a family to feed.
The anonymous note-writing vigilantes recalled the conversation differently: Money or plants, was the alternative attributed to Chang on the posters that appeared on Vinas large picture windows last week. There were eight in all.
Scraping them off by hand on Thursday afternoon, Chang wished aloud theyd used tape, not glue, and insisted hed been misquoted. These people dont know his story, he said, hes got two daughters, health conditions, a job to do.
Merchants on the block were curious and confused.
Why didnt they call you? asked Morteza Toudehfallah, owner of Rumi Optical two doors down, one of a half-dozen businesses between Haro and Barclay where Chang is on a first-name basis with the owners.
They did, he replied and squirted more lemon-scented solvent on the clouded glass.
Next door at Fujons hair salon the survivors had found refuge.
They were dying, it was sad, said hairstylist and plant-lover Raymond Cardinal, whod spearheaded the rescue effort.
He brought one big, palm-like Dracaena over about three weeks ago and liberated its twin, along with the dozen or so smaller snake plants, Thursday morning.
A few refugees had been placed with inquiring customers who were amused at the situation and laughed as they walked down the street with their new charges.
The casualties, maybe 15 or 20, had been laid to rest in the dumpster out back. Everything has a right to live, dont you think? Cardinal asked a client, fixing another of her dyed-blonde ringlets just so. She nodded.Had there been people in there instead of plants, perhaps Chang wouldnt have been so cavalier, they agreed.
I think its good what those people did, said Cardinal of the poster-pasters. Its good, good for the community to see somebody stick up for a plant.
Outside, long curls of paper had piled on the sidewalk like late-summer snowdrifts. Chang dutifully swept them up and deposited them in a municipal garbage bin. Then he locked up the restaurant and left it, bereft of life.
