Friday, March 11, 2011

Crowsnest Pass Economy, Cause for Concern.

Its with great sadness I read today that the Video Mill is shutting down in Blairmore, it is only six weeks ago that our local Curves closed.

Some people may not see these has substantial losses, I disagree every business lost has some kind of impact. Every business in our community was the result of somebody investing their time, effort and money. Both of those businesses employed a number of people, people who will no longer have those incomes to spend in our community.

What are the answers? Most of us do not know but optimistically they are not far away.

I hope that we do not lose any other businesses prior to the Study being completed by the Economic Task Force, which is comprised of a group of highly regarded professionals, brought together by our Mayor. We can only hope that this study will provide the opportunities for Council to seize that will lead to the revitalization of our community.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dean
It looks like High Rock Rentals is done too.

Anonymous said...

Do you really expect this report to bring forth new ideas.
I think it will be the same old thing promote tourism, look for secondary industry etc etc.
With the pedigree of the people writing it, of course it will look very impressive.

John Prince said...

Anon @10:44
Totally agree with you. Some times you can study something to death when all that is really needed is 'action'. Not another group (remember the Adhoc Committee?) of people presenting yet another report geared to try and 'inspire' people to do something about our many problems. Like it has been said before "Taking action leads to results; not taking action only leads to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness".

In other words, "We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action."

Anonymous said...

There is also another business that is across from the Greenhills in Blairmore that is having a closing out sale. They are shutting their doors as well. Whose next?

Anonymous said...

I believe the business across from the Greenhills is moving, not closing.

Anonymous said...

I don't want to sound negative but the mall looks terrible.
The vast majority of people I know do their shopping out of town.
You have to find a way to make them shop here.

Anonymous said...

John, it seems you have stopped the chattereing classes here on Dean's blog in their tracks.

"Careful. We don't want to learn from this."

Anonymous said...

I see Gallant is working on a "Buy Local Strategy"
This is what our local bussinesses need, why do so many people insist on going out of town?

peter rosner said...

Its called progress there was a time when our parents used to shop at the corner store and we supported the various busineses in each of our towns. Soon the banks and others centralized their services and busineses closed their doors. We took our shopping to a central grocery store and now people are driving to Wallmart. We complain about local busineses but do not do enough to support them ourselves. The video store is a victim of competition and technology. In a few years video rentals will be a thing of the past as you can download movies now. I include myself in this.

Anonymous said...

Regarding Mr Rosner's comments he is right, I will expand further.
Its not just Walmart, its Superstore, Costco etc. Look at Sparwood they have only had one grocery store forever. How long do you think we will have two?

My question by the time you add up the cost of running your car out of town, the price of a meal etc are you really saving?

Anonymous said...

If you live in Blairmore and drive to Walmart in Pincher Creek to go shopping, you would have to save 50.00 each trip to break even.The government of Canada allows .50/km as a cost for operating your car.(some businesses are way higher).50 cents/km times 100 km return, equals 50 bucks.
We do need our local businesses to be competitive though and also to offer a wider selection.They also should be promoting themselves to the BC communities as we are much cheaper than they are.(No HST, Fill up your car with gas,groceries and such.)

Anonymous said...

Although it is a US based publication here is an interesting article on the buy local topic
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/5-ways-to-help-your-community-go-local

Anonymous said...

High Rock Rentals is relocating to Bellevue.

Anonymous said...

The travel agency/resort wear store (Exhilarate) that was on Main Street Blairmore, relocated to Bellevue too. I heard there are at least two other businesses opening up in Bellevue in the next couple of months.