It’s 9 p.m. on a Friday night, and I am standing in a cavernous loading bay at the ICBC claims centre in Coquitlam.
Tonight, New Westminster Mayor Jonathan Cote and I are to drive around the city for Operation Red Nose, picking up folks too inebriated to drive.
The plan is to ride around with Rudy, the Operation Red Nose mascot, and visit bars in New West to promote the service, then pick up some clients.
By the time I arrived at the claims centre, there were already about 20 volunteers gathered.
Chris Wilson, organizer of the local Operation Red Nose, greets everyone as they enter. Some people have been volunteering for years, he says, so they’re pros.
Volunteers sign in and pick up their name tags and red vests. There are already clients waiting for rides, so the volunteers who are ready head out.
Jonathan and ICBC road safety rep Karon Trenaman arrive a short while later.
We say hi and proceed to check in.
Chris gives us the rundown of the rules and what to expect, then he introduces us to Rudy (Nicole) and her team.
The goal is to get everyone home safely, Chris says.
By 9:45 p.m. we’re on our way to our first stop: Sapperton District Taphouse on East Columbia Street.
The ride is a little awkward at first.
Eventually, we get talking about housing (How could we not talk housing, right?).
I tell Jonathan I lived in New Westminster until my rent surpassed $1,000 for a small (tiny) one-bedroom apartment near Moody Park. Now I live in a two-bedroom basement suite (with laundry, storage and parking) for $1,350 in Vancouver.
He’s shocked.
“Usually it’s the other way around,” he says.
By 10:11 p.m. a dense fog has settled over the city.
We head down Columbia and up Sixth Street to River’s Reach Pub.
Inside, people cheer as Rudy walks in.
At the back of the pub, Farhan Lalji, head coach of the winning Hyacks football team, is enjoying a night out with friends. He and Jonathan pose for a photo.
At 10:35 p.m. Jonathan wants Rudy to drop by Beer Friday.
“What’s Beer Friday?” Karon asks as we pull up to a Brow of the Hill townhouse.
Jonathan describes it as a gathering of the “New West Twitterati.”
Jonathan and Rudy climb the stairs to Brad and Alice Cavanagh’s house. The who’s who of #NewWest are gathered in the kitchen, and they jump up for photos with Rudy and the mayor.
After Beer Friday it’s on to Kelly O’Bryan’s/Carlos O’Bryan’s, then Hops, the Terminal and, finally, the Paddlewheeler.
By now it’s almost midnight, and we’re still waiting for our first call. The idea was to only serve clients within New Westminster, but it doesn’t seem to be very busy. On our way back to the claims centre (we’ve almost given up), we get our first call: a pickup in Port Moody with a drop-off in Coquitlam. None of us know the area well, but we go for it.
We make it to the restaurant on St. Johns Street.
Jonathan and Karen declare me the driver and Jonathan takes on the role of navigator – a role he’s a little apprehensive about. He claims he only knows New West. Anything past 10th Avenue and he’s lost, he says.
Lucky for us, the clients know where they’re going.
The clients, Jennifer and Greg, were at a Christmas party. Greg is a longtime Operation Red Nose volunteer, and he typically works every night of the season.
He donates $40.
Our next client is a couple looking for a ride from River’s Reach to a condo in the Brow of the Hill.
We pull up to the pub and hop out. The couple come out and we walk over to their car. (I will call them Boyfriend and Girlfriend.)
Boyfriend drives a Mercedes sports car. Two doors. He asks us to be careful, his car is very precious. I agree and ask for the keys.
“You’re the driver?” he asks, incredulously.
“Yep, Jonathan is the navigator,” I say, smiling.
He shakes off his disbelief and gets into the passenger seat. He doesn’t want to sit in the back, so Jonathan climbs in the back with Girlfriend. There’s a pile of empty plastic water bottles where his feet should go.
I climb in.
Once I press the push button starter, the seat starts adjusting on its own. I stop it. (Later Jonathan tells me he thought the seat was going to crush him. In his head, he says, he was thinking: “Oh no Cayley, please stop!”)
On the way home, Boyfriend tells us normally, he’d just drive. One time, before he met Girlfriend and was living in uptown, he was on his way home and made an illegal left turn at Sixth and Sixth. Of course there was a cop there, he says.
“It’s such a cash grab for the city,” Boyfriend says.
“Well actually, the money doesn’t go to the city,” Jonathan says, “it goes to the province.”
“Well still,” Boyfriend says, unaware he’s talking to the mayor.
He donates $20.
When we’re out of earshot, Jonathan bursts out laughing.
“Did you see his face when you told him you were the driver?” he says.
Karon drives us to our next pickup at Union Jack Public House on Seventh Street.
Two young women from Ontario need a ride to Burnaby.
They hop in the back seat while Jonathan and I climb in the front. Again, there’s a pile of empty water bottles at his feet.
We head up Eighth Street and into Burnaby. By now the fog is thick. I can barely see the car behind me.
While we’re driving, the women question us. What do we do? Why did we volunteer? Where does the money go? Do you like Bulk Barn? Have you ever been to Bulk Barn? Why aren’t there more Bulk Barns in Vancouver?
When we arrive, Karon is not behind us. We must have lost her along the way.
The women let us stay in the car while we call Karon.
She tells us she lost us near Kensington and is now by Deer Lake. She’s close. I tell her to head over the highway. We’ll be waiting at Holdom and Sumas.
We hop out.
The women donate $25 USD.
It takes Karon 30 minutes to find us.
To keep warm, Jonathan and I jump up and down while we wait. We talk about transit, the Mayors’ Council, housing (again) and crime. The conversation veers over to May Day, but he won’t talk on the record so off the record we go (sorry, folks).
Jonathan has a dry sense of humour and is pretty funny.
When Karon finally arrives, we’re both overjoyed (and a little frozen).
It’s almost 2 a.m. Time to go home.
