On the street outside Amy’s Loonie-Toonie Town, a dollar store at West 70th Avenue and Granville Street, a pink sign popped up last week: “Clearance Sale, 50 per cent off everything.”
In the store, a Marpole neighbourhood fixture since 1990, customers can buy artificial flowers, candles, greeting cards, cosmetics, tools, helium balloons, houseware, stationery, toys and gifts.
But not for long. The reason for the sign is all too apparent: At the end of this month, Amy’s will close for good.
Passing through the doors, shoppers can still see John Luk and his wife Regina, the store’s owner-operators, at the front counter cheerily serving customers as they have for the past 14 years. But the tone is subdued as goodbyes are exchanged.
John Luk told the Courier he feels “both happy and sad” this week. At age 62, Luk, who moved here from Hong Kong 22 years ago, is pleased to retire so he can take care of his granddaughter and learn tai chi. But he will also miss his longtime regular customers “who were like family.”
“Marpole is growing too fast,” he said.
The main reason for the closure is no surprise: a year-and-a-half ago, a large competing Dollarama chain store set up a few blocks south on the same street.
“They killed us,” said Luk. Still, he accepts the outcome as the nature of capitalism and says it’s not the state’s role to intervene. Amy’s itself was once a franchise, but each store became individually owned. Four in Vancouver have closed and only one at 846 Denman St. survives.
Luk paid a combined monthly rent and city tax of $12,680, which he can no longer afford. Rents are too high for other small stores on the block, he says, and worries others might close as well.
The building’s property manager, who did not give his name, said he doesn’t yet know who the new tenant will be, or if their rent will be higher than Amy’s paid, although he concedes that due to the Safeway and residential development across the street, the area’s land values are probably rising.
“The closure and construction impact from the Safeway was difficult for many of our local businesses and its reopening may have also reintroduced more local product competition as well,” said Claudia Laroye, director of the Marpole Business Association.
Some customers lamented that Amy’s departure is just one more sign that the village character of old Marpole is fading away, shoved aside by commercial developments and condo towers.
“Everybody is going to miss them,” said Charlie Borvari, 86, who has lived on Osler Street since 1980. “They were such good honest folks. They let me exchange things with no trouble.”
He shopped there weekly for 12 years, to buy cleaning supplies, light bulbs, dishes. Amy’s was five blocks away and was “central,” but the new Dollarama is too far to walk for his elderly friends.
Kevin Hayer, 33, owner of Mr. Pickwicks Fish and Chips, one block south from Amy’s, was unsentimental.
“I won’t miss them at all” he said. “I hope the building gets torn down. Out with the old and in with the new. The only thing I bought there was tarragon. I gladly go to down to the Dollarama, where I get much better products at half the price.”
He loves the new Safeway, and adds that his own rent is cheap, for now.
