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General Retail News
(10-13-2017, 12:11 PM)Spokes Wrote: [quote pid='43507' dateline='1507848250']
I get the London choice, it corners the market on that end of the province.  But what gives, I still see us as a better location

[/quote]

The end of the province is another two hundred kilometres past London. I know that Ikea is a big attractor for people, but London's catchment area is smaller than Waterloo Region's for sure.
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Waterloo Region folks are closer to Burlington than London. London can bring in Stratford, Chatham, Woodstock, etc..
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Well, Woodstock and Stratford are each as close to here as to London. I guess the catchment circle around Waterloo overlaps the circle around Burlington. But Waterloo's catchment really is a lot bigger than London's.

No doubt the company has all kinds of decision criteria and knows what it's doing. I'm just a bit surprised.
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Another one bites the dust - Petsche's Shoes will be closing in the new year after 63 years. Sad

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/768...kitchener/
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(10-23-2017, 10:15 PM)panamaniac Wrote: Another one bites the dust - Petsche's Shoes will be closing in the new year after 63 years.  Sad
https://www.therecord.com/news-story/768...kitchener/

Unfortunate -- we have been recurring customers (well, especially Mrs tomh009).  And there aren't so many retail stores in DTK, and this will move the needle in the wrong direction.  Sad
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Yes, Petche's is a good spot for higher-end footwear for the more "mature" consumer. The store itself is an eccentric mess, but they carry good stuff. I'm thinking that, once Fritch's is gone, that will be the end of the old school retailers in Downtown Kitchener. The only other hold out I can think of would be Pfeiffer Shoe Repair in the Food Block on Duke St.
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That doesn't seem like a good thing.Yes, things do have to evolve, but there's something to be said for some of the oldies staying behind.

In Galt the only ones I can think of are F J Brown & Son Jewellers, Reid's and Thyssen Shoes.
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Of course the Walper Tobacco Shop and the barber shop in the Walper are still thriving. Forgot about them.
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Why Retro Replay moved from downtown galt, found it on facebook

Quote:Hey everyone. My name is Mike and until September I owned a business in Galt called Retro Replay. I've wanted to kind of tell my story as to why we have moved, but until I found this group the other day, have felt that what I have to say would of fallen on deaf ears. This is kind of just a rant and release of ideas and thoughts I have had building up for over 4 years in business in downtown Galt.

My store is called Retro Replay. We buy sell and trade retro video games. I'm sure some of you guys have heard about it before, or have driven by, or maybe have stopped in over the years. Before we moved to Waterloo Town Square in Waterloo, we were located at 20 Ainslie St S. So right across the street from the Armoury and Bus Terminal. It's a pretty busy spot.

When I first was looking for a place in 2013 I had to have some criteria on location and this place fell perfectly into all the little slots I had. All the requirements for my type of business. The location was great! When I was opening up I did the vast majority of the work on my own. There were many many days working that went into the early hours of the morning.

For the first year we didn't have air conditioning so the door was open all the time. This included when I was working alone until 2, 3 or even 4am. In those months of late nights I had one person randomly come into the store and ask what I was doing. That was it. I felt safe and didn't have a single concern about the area at all, no matter the time or day or night nor the time of the month.

I remember the first person who came in with 'problems'. Now let me say when I mean problems this is a generalization of people with disruptive mental and addiction problems. She was talking to herself. Asked to use the bathroom (of a video game store), asked for free stuff, asked to charge her phone, then took off her clothes because it was too hot. I asked her to get dressed and leave again. We laughed and laughed about it for months. How crazy is that? Someone coming in acting all crazy and then getting naked. We thought it was pretty funny and a good story to tell.

Little did we know that 4 years later things like this wouldn't be a very oddball and obscure experience, but something we would deal with on a daily basis.

We used to get a person with 'problems' in the store maybe once every 10 days. Fast forward 4 years later and we would easily get 10-20 of them every single day. You need to understand this was EVERY SINGLE DAY. We're talking about 15 minutes each person on average. So on a bad day that was 5 hours a day out of an 8 hour shift where I was trying to deal with a person, or many times multiple people, with problems. It's really hard to explain unless you dealt with it personally. Imagine trying to be a social worker, a PSW, a therapist and a security guard all at the same time, oh and you have no experience in doing any of those things. Also imagine that the police and core patrol keep saying stuff like "That guy is contagious" or "if he touches anything just throw it away". How do you deal with someone like that if you're afraid to even get close to the person causing the problem?

Calling the police was a waste of time. They usually took an hour or two to show up. We were only able to successfully trespass a person 4 times in 4 years because the police took so long to arrive. Not blaming them at all. They have more problems to deal with than a guy laying on the floor of a video game store screaming about meat cutting money and bouncing trucks (this really happened) for 10 minutes before he gets up and wanders off. If you were a customer in my store and saw this happening and you were with your kid, or even by yourself, the chances of you ever coming back no matter how nice I am, how good my service is, how fair my prices are, are about 0%.

I'm sure that none of you guys are surprised by this, but the amount of needles, condoms, garbage, human feces, gobs of spit / who knows what, etc etc that I would have to clean off my storefront weekly and daily was getting revolting. The amount of foot traffic of people out shopping throughout the week had dropped off to almost nothing. Weekends were still solid, but during the week, if the customer didn't drive they didn't come. Especially if they knew the area. I was all of a sudden getting requests over the telephone and messages online to the store asking me to deliver to places like Kitchener, Guelph and Brantford, or to meet up somewhere else because Galt was too scary, dangerous or sketchy and they didn't feel safe.

I have hundreds of stories. I could tell you about the guy who just straight up started to trash my store because I asked him to leave after he started threatening little kids in my store. Or about the dozens of people who fell asleep on the floor, counters, or just standing up because they were so high on fentanyl. Or the guy who punched a cop in the face in my store. How about the buck naked 55 year old man who was pressing pickle on the front of my store for 20 minutes with a young guy and two young girls in my store. How we had to lock the store as this guy was out there naked for 20 minutes with his junk against the front glass. I could tell you about how when I started maybe once a month someone would try and sell me blatantly stolen stuff without ID and how at the end it was 5-10 people everyday.

I could tell you about the guy who overdosed and died in front of my store. Or the other guy who overdosed and his friends decided to chop him up and put him in garbage bags instead of calling the cops or ambulance to help him. Those things happened within two days of each other and all that happened was a story in the paper a few days later from the coroner saying that we might have a bigger problem than people want to admit. Who would want the truth in the paper about what happened? How do you think the movie industry would take that if they found that story while researching where to shoot their next episode of Murdoch Mysteries?

Visits from the police used to be a "Hey man! I was walking by do you happen to have any PS4 controllers? Ok cool! Ill grab one after my shift!" to the police coming in looking for thieves and others who assaulted people every other day.

The final straw was when we were robbed. I don't want to get into all the details regarding it, but needless to say we were open. One of our employees was just doing her job and helping who she thought was a good customer. He instead assaulted and robbed her and left her kinda standing there like what do I do now? I am very lucky though that she is stronger than 99% of people out there and even after that horrible experience she stayed on and worked there on her own, pushing through any anxiety of negativity the situation caused her.

As horrible as that is for her to deal with at the time and still now it gets even worse. We were robbed at 6:20pm. We found out who he was and told the police. They arrested him at The Bridges at 10:30pm the same night. They released him at 12:15am that morning and he walked by my store the next day at noon.

If you are not familiar with what getting kicked in the nuts feels like, seeing that is pretty damn close.

Galt is full of amazing people and Cambridge is in total too! However there is a serious problem taking place that is pushing tons of people and businesses out of the area. Rent for a store in Galt is less than 1/3 of what it is in Waterloo. It is 1/2 of what it is in Kitchener and stores are still totally vacant. The ones who are there quickly seem to disappear. I can think of about 25 stores who have come and gone within a 5 min walk of the bus terminal in the 4 years I was there. The funny thing is when you talk to them they all say the same thing.

I miss a lot of people from Cambridge. I miss a ton of my regulars. I miss talking to John at Main Variety, or the guys at Forches record shop. Graham and Monica at Monigrams. However right now it is not safe. It is not safe for kids to come into my store in that area. It is not safe for my employees or family. That is why I left.

Before I end this I just want to say that I have family members with addiction problems who I have seen suffer just like the people I am referring to in this post. Please do not imply that I am not sympathetic to their situation or addiction problems. That is the furthest thing from the truth. I just wanted to explain why we left. What the reasoning behind it was.

I hope that everyone stays safe out there and maybe, just maybe, someone who gives a crap about the city who is in power might do something about this, listen to the ideas of the business and local communities on solutions to this problem.
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Wow that sounds intense, I had no idea there was such an issue in that area.
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(10-23-2017, 10:32 PM)panamaniac Wrote: Yes, Petche's is a good spot for higher-end footwear for the more "mature" consumer.  The store itself is an eccentric mess, but they carry good stuff.   I'm thinking that, once Fritch's is gone, that will be the end of the old school retailers in Downtown Kitchener.  The only other hold out I can think of would be Pfeiffer Shoe Repair in the Food Block on Duke St.

Fritsch Fragrances!  Although they are "temporarily closed" at the moment.

Fritsch, Pfeiffer, Petsche's, Schreiter's -- the German names are slowly disappearing from the streetscape.
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(10-25-2017, 10:43 PM)rangersfan Wrote: Wow that sounds intense, I had no idea there was such an issue in that area.

there are a lot of hidden stories
Quote:We live by the square in downtown Galt and a couple months ago we found an empty machete box and empty liquor bottles close to my children’s bedroom window in our front yard. When we called the police they said “sounds like you have a garbage issue” and “well you live downtown Galt” fast forward to now a few months from that time and I am scared to garden in my front yard and my children are not allowed to be out there. This town has the infrastructure and charm to be so much more than it is. It’s a shame and in the end a firm hand needs to come in and enforce order.
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There are definitely pockets, but sadly it isn't just one area of the region or the country; it is everywhere, and all walks of life.

Now Carfentanil has been found in the region.

Also, Public Health is looking for input about supervised injection services www.safeinjectionwr.ca

"In the last year, communities across Canada have experienced various opioid issues, including overdose. Federal and provincial governments recognize the seriousness of the issue and the province of Ontario has declared an opioid crisis. 
 
Region of Waterloo Public Health and Emergency Services and our community partners have many harm reduction services to help people who inject drugs and for the community as a whole. Harm reduction services for people who inject drugs aim to keep people alive, safe and healthy even if they continue to use drugs. If we keep people alive, safe and healthy, they will have the opportunity to get treatment for addictions when they are ready."
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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It is very true, the opioid issue is a growing concern, substance abuse of any kind can have devastating effect on ones mental/social well being.
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From the sounds of it it has grown higher in cambridge compared to the rest of the region. How much is from the rest of the region's homeless being kicked out of downtown Kitchener and how much is coming in because courts in other cities are sending people to cambridge at Bridges for treatment during the day.
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