Cates Deck in North Vancouver

A dock-like plaza on the water next to Lonsdale Quay, Cates Deck is one of the outdoor spots in North Vancouver where you can consume alcohol in public.

You can take your own beer, wine or other beverage most days to this venue in the Shipyards District. In the summer, however, there’s a beer garden on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (and you have to buy your drinks from them).

See our article about North Vancouver Parks Where You Can Drink Alcohol (although not when special events are taking place) to learn about the North Shore’s other outdoor alcohol-friendly public spaces. Continue reading to learn more about the Cates Deck location.

This article contains the following information about Cates Deck:

Deckchair Cinema Series | Rules for Alcohol | Beer Garden | Other Information

Alcohol-Friendly Cates Deck

Cates Deck is a great place to visit if you’re looking for a nice waterfront view as you sip a beverage. The venue is sandwiched between Lonsdale Quay and the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver. The actual deck is pretty simple. It’s a small to medium-sized wooden structure that sits over the water. It’s a fair size, although tiny compared to nearby Burrard Drydock Pier.

What makes Cates Deck more special than it seems is that it’s one of the eight designated public spaces in the City of North Vancouver where you’re allowed to drink alcohol. There’s also a beer garden on the deck from Thursdays to Sundays in the summer.

Deckchair Cinema on Cates Deck in North Vancouver — Deckchair Cinema

2025 Deckchair Cinema Series

Cates Deck hosts Deckchair Cinema, a series of outdoor movie screenings run by the Polygon Gallery in the summer. Each screening takes place at sundown and is preceded by music and market vendors. Here is the schedule of movies running in 2025. They happen on Thursday beginning at dusk.

July 3rd: Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
July 10th: Universal Language
July 17th: Gravity
July 24th: Spaceballs
July 31st: The Fifth Element
August 7th: Flash Gordon
August 14th: Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan
August 21st: Starman
August 28th: David Lynch’s Dune

See our article about Deckchair Cinema to learn more about these films.

TIP: See our article about Vancouver Summer Movies for a list of other outdoor movies in the Lower Mainland. There you’ll find information about free films happening all over the region, including Sunset Cinema outside the Queen Elizabeth Theatre with Vancouver Civic Theatres.

Rules for Alcohol on Cates Deck

Up until 2020 it was illegal to drink alcohol in outdoor public spaces apart from bar and restaurant patios. The only exception was during special events with licenses to sell adult beverages.

Because of the pandemic making it much harder to socialize indoors, the City of North Vancouver wanted to encourage safe, outdoor socialization. So it declared eight different parks and plazas as designated drink-friendly areas.

This new policy was very popular when it ran from June to October in 2020. It was then made permanent. Cates Deck is now one of a number of sites on this list which means that it’s legal to consume alcohol there from 11:00 am to dusk every day. You can take your own alcohol, except if there’s an event happening on the deck.

Since North Vancouver’s experiment, a number of other Lower Mainland municipalities have adopted similar policies.

The deck has numerous tables and chairs to sit at. On beer garden days there are a few extra, and some (but not all) of them have umbrellas overhead. There’s also live music at set times. Aside from that, the deck is completely open, so not much place for shade.