A group of safety advocates pulled an all-nighter outside a Vancouver convenience store Friday night to protest changes to a law that protects late-night workers.

The law was introduced in 2005 in response to the death of gas station employee Grant de Patie, who was killed by a driver trying to steal gas.

"We're marking the one-year anniversary of watering down Grant’s Law," said Stephen Von Sychowski of the Employee Action and Rights Network.

Grant’s Law ruled that drivers had to pre-pay for gas and that employers had to install protective cages for employees working late nights, as well as staff more than one worker for overnight shifts.

But the rules underwent changes one year ago. Employers were given an option to avoid providing a cage and staffing multiple workers if they installed surveillance cameras, a time-locked safe and a panic button.

“A safe, that’s great for protecting money. It doesn’t help to protect the worker,” Sychowski said. “The emergency button, that’s a great additional thing, but the problem with it is it only provides help, at best, after the actual incident has taken place.”

Von Sychowski said the lack of a safety cage leaves employees vulnerable, and that there’s no regulation surrounding where panic buttons send messages to.

But WorkSafeBC said the new option does not put overnight employees in any more danger and that only a small fraction of convenience stores and gas stations actually use it.

“We think that the working alone regulation has been very successful. It is protecting these workers,” said spokeswoman Donna Freeman. “Any of the options that are being chosen by these employers are working well.”

Freeman said not all employers could comply with all of the original requirements of Grant’s Law, hence the changes.

Overall, Grant’s Law has been a “huge success,” Freeman said. “It’s virtually eliminated gas-and-dash robberies in British Columbia.”

She said statistics back up that late-night employees are much safer than they were before the law came into effect.

Similar sit-ins to protest the law changes have been held in Victoria and Nanaimo.

Activists said they chose Mac’s convenience store to hold their protest because the chain has been vocal in its support of Grant’s Law.

With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Scott Hurst