Months after taking over Little Sister's, Parm Gill is fighting a threat the store's founders never had to: a construction zone.

In September 2026, the City of Vancouver began tearing up Davie Street for infrastructure upgrades, and the store that survived censorship, court battles and three bombings is now contending with something more mundane and, Gill warns, potentially fatal — a sidewalk no one can walk on.

“If you are gonna go in and cut out the organs of the community that you wanna build the infrastructure for, it is no longer Davie Street,” Gill told Global News.

The project, which began Tuesday, September 8, 2026, covers Davie Street between Jervis and Thurlow and includes water-service upgrades and widened, more accessible sidewalks. The city says the end result — expected by spring 2028 — will be a better street. The problem is getting there. Since the work began, Gill says sales have dropped as much as 40% compared with the same period last year, with the store losing thousands of dollars in a single week. He has said Little Sister's cannot stay open beyond a couple of months if the losses continue — this on a storefront carrying roughly $100,000 a year in property tax, six months of it already prepaid.

The low point came before September 17, when both sidewalks outside the store were closed at once, cutting off customers and staff alike; Gill said an employee was even reprimanded by construction workers while trying to reach work. In a statement, the City of Vancouver said that “during water service upgrades … crews encountered unexpected complexities that caused temporary pedestrian access challenges,” and that “sidewalk access was promptly restored when it was deemed safe.”

Little Sister's is not alone.

Global News reported that businesses up and down Davie Village are struggling as the work drags on: the popular Master Donair sold its business after the construction started, and a nearby laundromat has faced water shut-offs. For a neighbourhood whose small, queer-owned businesses are the whole point of Davie Village, a project meant to improve the street risks hollowing it out first.

Gill's argument isn't against better sidewalks — it's about sequencing and support. Build the infrastructure, he says, but don't starve the community businesses it's supposed to serve while you do it. It's a familiar posture for this store, which has never been shy about naming what threatens it, whether the threat came from Ottawa or from a backhoe outside the front door. The ask to Vancouverites is the simplest, most effective one there is: show up. Walk past the fencing, shop the block, and keep the businesses that make the Village worth rebuilding standing until the work is done.

Sources & Video

●      Global News — Davie Village businesses battle Vancouver street construction (video)  ·  video

●      BCBusiness — Davie Village construction and Little Sister's

●      BCBusiness — Little Sister's new owner, Parm Gill