VANCOUVER, B.C. (MarketWatch) — Rioting was very much on the minds of both the police and public in Vancouver even before London’s distant streets erupted this week. Vancouver’s nighttime sky has also been lit up by explosions this month. But, unlike the destruction going on in the larger Commonwealth city, the fireworks here have been peaceful.

This British Columbia metropolis, voted the world’s Most Liveable City recently by The Economist, earned that distinction and then some this week as the city’s 21st annual Celebration of Light fireworks concluded.

The three nights of big pyrotechnics shows were the first large-scale public gatherings in Vancouver since the June 15 hockey riots following the Stanley Cup final game. The big fireworks event had police and city officials justifiably nervous. Police, emergency staff, and volunteers were out in force all three nights of the fireworks, and hundreds of extra police were brought in, just in case.

Riots sweep London for third night

But given Vancouverites’ and Canadians’ traditional civil behavior, “just in case” never happened during this month’s three big public gatherings.

Over 300,000 spectators gathered this past weekend, packing the shores and beaches of English Bay near downtown Vancouver to watch the fireworks finale — more than were jammed into the city’s business district to watch the climactic hockey game.

The parking lots were overflowing at one Spanish Banks beach, about two miles across the bay where the fireworks were detonated and from where our family watched the 20-minute-long big bang. We could see blue lights of police cars near the fireworks barge, where 750 ticketed bleacher seats had been set up to help pay for the show.

Over at our large and popular beach, we enjoyed an evening and sights (besides the fireworks) unimaginable in any major U.S. city today:

Imagine this...

No open fires. No unleashed dogs. (Dogs were not even allowed on this beach.) No obvious signs of anyone drinking. No amplified music(!) A well-behaved cosmopolitan crowd, many Asian immigrants, largely kids and extended families. And lots of young males who weren’t out of control. (Really.) Lifeguards — remember those? — in towers and also offshore in rowboats. (I am not making this up.)

A store in downtown Vancouver still boarded up nearly two months after post-game rioting Jean Mann

In five hours on that beach on a Saturday night, we saw only one perfunctory police patrol pass by briefly. The overall civility we witnessed that night was astonishing — at least to a visiting American. Even one (like myself) who’d lived in Canada.

There was no doubt we weren’t in the United States, where individual rights — including the right, nay the responsibility — to act like an inconsiderate jerk in public all-too-often prevail today.

Spirits pour out

Rioting was the last thing on these folks’ minds. The misadventures of a small group of drunk knuckleheads after a June hockey game seemed a distant memory this festive summer night. If those same kind of knuckleheads were on our beach — and there were plenty of young males there — I certainly couldn’t tell it, given the widespread civilized behavior we witnessed.

Not that some people didn’t try to spoil things: The Vancouver Province reports that there were more than 600 liquor pour-outs last Saturday night. Translation: If the cops find you with booze in public, they pour it out, and off you go, your cellulo-cerebral balance hopefully still within grasp.

Riots here not forgotten

The hockey and London riots (there were over 100 arrests here June 15) were still on some Vancouverites’ minds this week, even after the three big, peaceful public gatherings.

The Vancouver Sun is still giving heavy coverage to the aftermath of the Stanley Cup riot. It ran a front-page piece Wednesday reporting that the operating rooms at a downtown hospital had to be closed the night of June 15 because of the danger of tear gas and pepper spray possibly contaminating air quality in the operating rooms. Read the story.

I heard listeners on local radio talk station CKNW discussing their heartbreak at what was going on in London this week. Several recalled their feelings of hurt and humiliation after the rioters trashed Vancouver’s business district. “It’s a terrible shame what’s going on in London,” said one woeful British Columbia CKNW caller in a decidedly British accent.

Even the three peaceful recent mass public gatherings haven’t made people forget what happened in June. The VPD is still examining thousands of cellphone-camera photos taken of the rioters by outraged bystanders and will probably make more arrests. Fortunately, nobody died in the post-hockey drunkfest.

I went to Vancouver’s downtown business district to see if there were any visible signs left of the Canucks’ hockey riots. To my surprise, there were:

Store windows as remembrances

There was one boarded-up window at street level at the big downtown Sears, and another next door at the Chapters bookstore. The plywood at both stores was covered by written messages of apology and regret over the damage inflicted on both retail establishments.

A Vancouver cop told me: “They could have replaced those windows long before now, but they’ve left those boards up as a reminder of what happened down here.”

For the record, the three fireworks-show competitors this year — each had its own evening and its own barge of fireworks — were Spain, China, and Canada.

China was voted the official winner this week.

But to my mind, Canada (and Vancouver) were the biggest winners.