Tea & Two Slices is a long-running local news round-up by NEEDS frontman and veteran dishwasher Sean Orr, who lives and works in Gastown, deeply aware of his privilege.

Vancouver mayor wants property tax rate set at five per cent in 2021. “This city is too expensive! We can’t afford more taxes…” No, this city is too expensive precisely because we didn’t capture any of the unprecedented and unearned increase in wealth of property owners over the last decade. “Kennedy Stewart is hoping to tax Vancouver homeowners into poverty…” I don’t think you know what that word means.

Rent control for retail, too: Restaurateur says high rents hurting downtown Vancouver’s restaurant culture. God forbid we feel bad for Emad Yavoub but there’s a lot of truth here. Landlords continue to get rich off of the backs of independent businesses then turn around and blame increased rents on property taxes. The San Francisco-isation of Vancouver began years ago — a deadly feedback loop where nobody can afford to live here so nobody goes out to eat — and we’ve done nothing to stop it because people continue to profit.

Maybe he should have used his restaurant to launder boatloads of money. Pardon the pun: Vancouver police identify ‘gap’ in sale of luxury boats to organized crime. Never forget the time a barge took out a bunch of luxury yachts in Coal Harbour.

Too bad this guy couldn’t have taken a few more out: Suspect in botched Vancouver float plane theft captured in surveillance footage. D.B. Cooper, you are not my friend.

Meanwhile, this story is nuts: Divorce reveals admissions of tax fraud, mortgage fraud, perjury and kickbacks. Vancouver is still the wild wild west. It takes a divorce to reveal the rampant levels of tax evasion and corruption our system tacitly permits.

The entire real estate industry is a giant ponzi scheme: Realtor snipped in dispute with his hairstylist over $30,000 cut in Vancouver deal price.

Tax empty land now! Metro Vancouver developers slash condo presale launches as demand drops. As Justin Fung writes in this week’s VanRealities:

Developers massively oversupplying our housing market was supposed to solve our housing crisis. How’s that working out, YIMBYs? Oh right, it turns out when prices drop, they’d rather sit on land, speculate on it further and not actually supply any of that housing that you magically wished for them to build at a loss.

Imagine presiding over one of the biggest money laundering scandals and a housing crisis created in part from foreign speculation and then doing this: B.C. Liberals call for ban on foreign funds to pipeline protesters. Yeah? How about a ban on foreign-funded pipelines?

The pushback on Twitter over the owner of Gourmet Warehouse’s comments on how protesters should protest is gold:

I am sympathetic with the causes & understand the anger. Could the protests be on sidewalks, parks and public gathering spaces giving voice loud and clear without involving fellow citizens innocently going about their daily business? We all Need to show kindness &understanding

— Caren McSherry (@caren_mcsherry) February 26, 2020

Ah yes, we should protest quietly in our homes while we cook our dinners.

r/Vancouver of the day: Just another fine day in Vancouver, naked hood surfing.

History of the day: The ‘Battle of Roberts Creek’ was not exactly the Navy’s finest hour.

Bonus: Musicians Algorithmically Generate Every Possible Melody, Release Them to Public Domain.