"So what did it used to be?" you ask. "Full and busy", I reply. When I went there yesterday afternoon to get a lottery ticket, it seemed that about half the old familiar shops were closed and boarded over, awaiting renovations and new tenants.
Along the ground floor main mall area, there were several no longer with us, and up on the upper deck or second floor, the big 'Winners' is gone, and there's a 'coming soon' sign on the walls there, advertising an Oriental grocery. So it turns out Winners was really Losers, and their spot doesn't seem to me to be in a convenient enough location for a grocery operation. But what do I know?
I went to a shoe store called 'Soft Moc' where I've bought two or three pairs of shoes and boots, looking for a pair of flip-flops to wear around the house and around the building here, and instead of the two cute young gals who used to be running it, there was an overweight young man who almost went into shock when I asked if he had any men's flip-flops. He said he hadn't seen any yet, as if they periodically wander through on their own.
That was when I decided to go up to the second level, and check out the stock at 'The Shoe Company' just across from the now-closed Winners. They still have cute gals serving the customers, and they also have a nice variety of flip-flops. I bought a pair, and wondered why I hadn't gone there first.
On the way to the mall, which is only a few blocks from this building, I couldn't take the usual direct route, because there'd been an eight-car pile-up on the second narrows bridge, and everybody had plugged all the main streets trying to get to the other bridge, Lions Gate, near the mall. I had to circle around through half of North Vancouver until I got to a reasonably clear route which took me up to the main highway, and then used that to get over to the mall. I'm older than gridlock, and I still haven't got enough patience to accept it. Sitting in an endless line of traffic, smelling the guy in front's exhaust and polluting the guy behind me has never seemed very intelligent to me. David Suzuki and his 'Nature of Things' TV show should examine that sometime.
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Re: Winners -
ReplyDeleteBack at the mall today (Saturday) a lady told me that Winners isn't gone after all - they're just moving from the upper level to the lower level and into twice the space.
So I stand (or sit) corrected - they didn't go bust, but just the opposite. They outgrew the old store. Not many store-keepers in that mall can say that, for sure.
Every year, there's another rash of closings, and another batch of newcomers to take their places.
Sometimes, I wonder if it's a sly way of getting a tax write-off.
They'll never tell....