Downtown offers new vibe for young people
By Lethbridge Herald on March 10, 2025.
By Sam Leishman
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
D
espite long-standing complications arising from interactions with vulnerable populations in the area, Lethbridge’s downtown continues to draw in larger numbers of young people.
That’s according to Amin Iqbal, a Millennial himself at 33 years old. Iqbal is a real estate agent who owns property downtown and he’s a member of the Downtown Lethbridge Business Revitalization Zone (BRZ) board of directors.
He says his family has been active in the downtown area for about the past 40 years, since his grandparents owned and operated Charisma Gifts & Novelties. His parents then owned LA Tees from the late 1990s up until the store’s closure in 2018. Now, Iqbal is forging his own path in the downtown area.
Iqbal points out that Downtown Lethbridge holds plenty of value for Millenials and Gen Z, who are certainly paying attention and acting upon it.
“You have a lot of unique traits in the downtown core,” he told the Herald. “There’s a lot of history behind it, so people want to be indulged into what’s going on within our community. Another thing that I think contributes to it is that it’s affordable. For businesses themselves, I know it’s very reasonable. The BRZ does a lot of advocating and lobbying for businesses within the downtown core, and they do various events throughout the year.”
However, safety in the downtown area is often a topic of discussion. Iqbal says he’s aware of how the issue of addiction has changed over the course of his lifetime, but he stresses that social issues seem to be more visible here in Lethbridge.
“We’re just a little bit more of a close-knit community, and that’s how come we feel it a little bit more. I was in Toronto and I walked downtown, and it was there. It was just that you have a lot more area, it’s a lot more spread out, so people have the ability to kind of hide out of plain sight.”
Iqbal explained that young people like himself have little problem sharing downtown Lethbridge with vulnerable populations.
He says he’s noticed that interactions between the two groups are largely positive, or neutral at the very least, as Millenials and Gen Z make an effort to normalize the struggles that homeless and addicted individuals face and offer what help they can.
It’s a complex issue that will take time and patience from all levels of government, police, business owners and downtown visitors to solve, according to Iqbal.
As even more young people and their families are attracted to the downtown, Iqbal says it may also incentivize vulnerable people to move on to other areas of the city where they can receive the help they need and deserve.
“When there’s big events happening, when there’s a population [in the downtown], you don’t see them.” says Iqbal. “They blend in or they don’t want to be seen, so they go elsewhere. That’s where we’re transitioning. We’re trying to get them the help that they need with supportive housing and all these different initiatives that are going into place.”
Iqbal notes that expansion projects at the Lethbridge shelter and the attached soup kitchen as well as Streets Alive’s impending move to the old El Dorado RV building will likely draw more of the vulnerable population away from the downtown to the 2 Ave A N area where they can be better cared for.
Millennials and Gen Z are also becoming the parents of the next generation, known as Gen Alpha. Iqbal says it’s hard to predict how this new group of kids, the oldest of which were born around 2013, will perceive downtown Lethbridge when they reach adulthood, based upon their parents’ attitudes and actions. But he’s remaining hopeful about the future.
“We’re starting to become more accepting and more open to various things. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but not necessarily a good thing, too. There needs to be a line in the sand, and we need to know what can and what cannot cross it.”
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Although skeptical about his outlook for downtown I admire the positivity and hope he’s right.
this is a pretty fair take on our downtown. important is the need to engage with it – as with everything, if you do not use it, it seems to erode and crumble. downtown events go off without issues, safely and with bright energy. we hardly have the random violence and murder rates that affect the general population that is typical of larger cities. we have excellent food, pubs, and a great live music scene downtown, too, thanks to the tireless work of those that own the slice and the owl. bravo! any businesses affected by loitering and worse should for sure be receiving more support and police presence.
I am sorry but I will not ever become more accepting to watching my customers get harassed, vehicles broke into, open drug use around my business, bio-hazards left around my business and the high cost of keeping my business open in the downtown.
I completely disagree with your take on downtown and I have been here for years as well. We banded together to shut down the drug consumption site before it killed all the businesses downtown. Many great events such as the RibFest will not use Galt Gardens as a venue due to the issues, even though it was ideally located in the center of the city, and even Canada Day celebrations see 20% of the crowds it used to get due to the issues.
As one friend pointed out, and many of us agree, Streets Alive move will not change anything! The people have been allowed to hang out in those areas and they feel they own it now! They said the same thing a couple of decades ago when Streets Alive was on 1st Avenue and 4th Street South next to the old Bridge Inn where ReMax is, and moved it to the current shelter site believing that it would keep the issues in that area! How did that work out? They all still came downtown and created the same issues? We just never learn!!
You will see the issues increase in fact, as the shelter space has doubled. Where do you think all of the people are going to go in the daytime from the shelter?
Where they always go! Downtown! They have been allowed to always do this and even ones who have been housed are still coming downtown to hang out day and night often just to do what they do at night, getting high, damaging property, breaking and entering, burning up sheds, garages, fences, trees, etc., just as they did last year.
We have had to remove landscaping in this city that enhanced areas because of the damages, remove bus shelters because they were being used to do drugs, sex, and as encampments so that now the law abiding citizens stand in the cold to wait for buses, etc.
Businesses owners and their staff have been assaulted, some right in your own building so I think you are have been drinking from the DBRZ Kool-Aide that says, SHHHHH, don’t tell anyone about the problems and they won’t know!
I was just talking with another business owner downtown last week who I hadn’t met who also has had vehicles broken into, windows smashed, staff assaulted and has spent thousands of dollars on security cameras and other security measures in an effort to keep the family business open, which has been open for decades!
I am sorry, but I am not buying what you are selling in this report!
Let us take a moment to look at some of the points brought up in this article by the author of this article and Mr. Iqbal.
1) I remember both of his families businesses from my youth fondly. I shopped there many times. However, these businesses suffered and eventually closed along with many other businesses from the ever increasing issues of crime, drugs, changing markets, etc. that have driven myself and so many other Lethbridge residents from shopping or visiting the downtown core.
2) He goes on to say how the younger generations seem to be more supportive of the downtown core than older generations. I too was one of that “younger generation” many years ago that did the same. Suffice to say that the continued escalation of drug and crime problems in the downtown core cured me of that affliction. Don’t worry, those same problems will also educate the Millenial and Gen Z generation eventually to also abandon the downtown core as it did to me.
3) The article also asserts that as more people and large events spend time in the downtown core, the problematic people “move on to other areas of the city”. This tactic has been city councils, the police, the BRZ’s, and many other organizations “go to” plan for decades and has done nothing to help the issues facing the downtown core. As is stated in the article, events and businesses have left the downtown core, never to return.
The article seems to be trying to “spin” the very very issues it highlights into some sort of positive when it is anything but that.
Also, as commendable as it seems at a glance to see the many organizations helping the less fortunate in and around our downtown core grow and increase their services, all that has happened in the last few decades is the creation of an “industry” around serving this problem. We are on the cusp of doubling the capacity of the homeless shelter to serve the increasing need for this service in our community. This “industry” seems to have only an interest in growing itself larger and larger as do most industries as they find a market, and the money to support it.
My only question is this – what is the plan moving forward from here? Where does the City of Lethbridge and these organizations see this progressing in the future? Are we prepared to see this “industry” simply grow and grow over time, along with the ever larger budgets needed to support it, or is there actually plan to help these less fortunate individuals and make these facilities “obsolete” in the future?
For those of you who feel this opinion is a bit harsh, I would suggest you have a look around the downtown core again. Try doing it at night if you dare.
The City of Lethbridge has put up steel fence worthy of a prison around their own fleet services building located a block or two from the shelter. Apparently the standard chain link fence was not up to the task of protecting this facility.
The Multi-Cultural Center on 5th street also has a similarly impressive steel fence around its facility.
Add to that all of the additional security and camera’s added by private businesses in the downtown core, and we are well on our way to building our own “Fort Knox” downtown.
I was there in the beginning when the BRZ was formed. There were such big hopes and plans for our downtown core. It was a very positive and hopeful time. Oddly enough, the downtown core was still a busy, bustling area full of local business and local shoppers at that time. It was even mostly safe back then.
The BRZ should be ashamed of themselves to have collected their levies from downtown businesses for decades while presiding over the exodus of businesses and shoppers for decades from our downtown core. They were dealt a bad hand by the City of Lethbridge, and no amount of hopes and dreams was going to change what had already started. The BRZ could see this trend MANY years ago, but continued the charade.
As someone who has grown up and lived in Lethbridge for 50+ years, I can honestly say that the continued decay of our downtown core is very sad to me.
Until City Council, the BRZ, local police, and the citizens of Lethbridge are willing to look past the partisan politics and “political correctness” infecting this discussion, the continued decay of our downtown core will continue unabated.