TodayFriday, July 17

The old Starbucks in Cook Street Village, dark since it closed last September, has a new tenant, and it's a Victoria name. Hey Happy will open its third location in the neighbourhood this winter, adding to its shops on Johnson and at Uptown.

Co-owner Rob Kettner says the team wasn't hunting for another spot. Then Jawl Properties, which owns the building, came calling. Kettner says the landlords fielded interest from bigger companies but wanted a local operator in the space.

Renovations start in the coming months with Victoria design firm Bidgood, the same shop behind Hey Happy's Lower Johnson café. Expect the downtown favourites, plus a few items unique to Cook Street and a heavier lean on weekend brunch.

Nancy Noble still doesn't quite believe the number. "Fifty thousand people — most people don't even believe it until they come here," the AGGV director told the Times Colonist. "And then they believe it."

That's Saturday's expected crowd for the 37th Greater Victoria Paint-In, and this year the whole street is theirs. The City of Victoria is letting producers use all of Moss Street again, after nearby construction cramped recent editions. A record 183 artists get the day to sell paintings, sculpture and Sally Chupick's three-inch cedar 'minis' straight to whoever wanders by.

Moss closes from Fort to Dallas Road, 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with traffic still crossing at Fairfield. VicPD will run traffic control and site security, and event sponsor MAC Reno is parking a fleet of trucks as vehicle barriers, a precaution the gallery adopted after last year's Lapu-Lapu Day attack in Vancouver. "It takes a village," Noble said.

If you'd rather listen than stroll, the jazz duo The Meating recorded a live album on July 3 inside UVic's P0 parkade, 150 people packed under the concrete. "It seems illegal, which is the best part," Marc Micu joked. The record drops Aug. 13.

Victoria's $16.9-million push against street disorder has hit a snag nobody planned for: a drug that doesn't respond to Naloxone.

Kerrilee Jones, the city's assistant director of community safety and bylaw services, told council Thursday there's been a noticeable rise in medetomidine, an animal tranquillizer, showing up in the illicit supply. Unlike an opioid overdose, there's no antidote. Health providers can only keep someone stable until the drug wears off on its own.

Jones said the sedation is severe enough that outreach workers struggle to get people alert enough for food, medicine or a shelter bed. Of the money spent so far, the largest chunk, $7.1 million, has gone to enforcement, including 12 new bylaw officers and funding for nine extra Victoria police officers on foot patrol.

Staff estimate 180 to 210 people remain unhoused on the streets, concentrated around the 900-block of Pandora Avenue. Mayor Marianne Alto pointed to 75 people housed by a relocation coordinator as one measure of progress in what she called the first year of a multi-year plan.