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Fourth Vancouver shooting in June occurs in Victoria Drive restaurant

Police responded to reports that a man had been shot in a restaurant on Victoria Drive between 34th and 35th Avenue around 12:35 p.m. Thursday afternoon.

Police responded to reports that a man had been shot in a restaurant on Victoria Drive between 34th and 35th Avenue around 12:35 p.m. Thursday afternoon.

The 33-year-old victim was inside the restaurant Lam Hoa Quan when he suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Paramedics rushed the victim to the hospital, who remains in a stable but critical condition.

Police believe one shooter was involved and fled out the restaurant’s rear into a waiting vehicle.

The victim is known to police, who believe this was a targeted attack.

“We don’t necessarily believe at this point that this is related to another incident,” said police spokesperson Sergeant Randy Fincham. “Our number one concern at this point obviously is tracking down who did this.”

Local senior resident, Ng Ho-Tin, was headed to Teng’s Market on the corner of Victoria and 34th to buy groceries and remembers hearing a commotion before police arrived.

“I heard someone arguing inside the restaurant when I passed by,” she said in Cantonese.

Police allowed customers to leave businesses after taping off the area but did not allow car owners to retrieve their vehicles from the zone.

Hoy An Café restaurant across the street was one of the businesses in the taped off area.

“I’m a little scared,” said Le Phan, who works at Hoy An Café. She said she isn’t surprised by the incident as this stretch of Victoria Drive has seen gun violence before.

Last March, a 33-year-old Burnaby man sitting in a parked car was the target of a shooting on the corner of Victoria Drive and 35th Avenue.

Chris Carpenter lives in a house on 35th and is surprised by the frequency of shootings in the neighbourhood.

“We moved from Surrey and we’ve been here since October and there’s been two shootings,” he said.

Fannie Zhou is a supervisor at the Dairy Queen across from Lam Hoa Quan.

“Sometimes we have customers coming in and telling us about crime [on Victoria] usually with guns,” said Zhou.

Kabi, who did not want her last name published, is the owner of a South Asian clothing store on the corner of Victoria Drive and 35th. She said she’s never seen this much police presence near her store before. 

“It’s sad, we came to this country because it should be safe,” said Kabi, a Sri Lankan immigrant.

This is the fourth reported shooting in Vancouver in two weeks. There have been eight recorded shootings this year. 

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