Vancouver Would Be Cooler If is a column that advocates for things that exist in other cities that could serve to improve or otherwise celebrate life in our own.

(via) I chuckled when I first saw this video out of a New York City suburb several months ago, what now feels like years before the arrival of the coronavirus. Must be nice, I remember thinking. Having hunkered down in social isolation with my immediate community for the past few few months, the whole concept of the “Garage Bar” has started making much more sense. A place to have an unlicensed sip with your friends and neighbours just feels right for our neighbourhood laneways, and never mind the NIMBY complaints. Even before the virus came along it wasn’t unusual for those on my block (and from around the corner) to get together on pleasant evenings with drinks and sit around in camp chairs in the alley behind my house. If one of them were to build a bar in their garage – say, for rainy pleasant evenings after the Covid fog lifts – I’d be in there bending elbows without hesitation.