THE owner of Terrace’s last video store, Video Stop, has decided to hit the stop button and close up shop after a decade of diminishing sales.
When owner Harminder Dosanjh bought the rental outlet in 2000, it was a money-maker for the first five years, after which she said local interest in renting movies dwindled.
In the beginning, the store was located where Gemma’s Boutique currently is on the corner of Emerson and Lakelse, and then she had the store in the mall in the current location of SportChek.
Back then a company called Movie Gallery also had two rental stores in town.
When it closed its Gobinder Mall outlet, Dosanjh moved the Video Stop to that location.
“I had three kids, they all worked there, it was a good business,” she said.
The roots of the store actually go back to 1983.
A previous owner, Jim Wold, had the store on Lakelse for a time.
Over years as the business switched locations, the movie-watching landscape was transforming.
“I have no idea,” Dosanjh says about how many videos the store has accumulated over the years, though it could be approximately 30,000, according to another staff member Molly Lemoine.
The store stopped handling video cassettes some time ago in favour of DVD and Blu-ray technology.
Dosanjh said a movie called Blood Diamonds was one of the most rented ever, and Avatar.
Right now, the store is selling off its inventory leading to a final in-business date of Feb. 1.
“I am sad to be closing,” Dosanjh said.
“It’s good to be my own boss, and I have wonderful employees.”
“I will be sad to not have a video store to come back to,” she said.
Dosanjh had hopes of selling the store but purchase offers weren’t high enough.
She is convinced that the business could continue, but would need some innovation, such as combining it with another venture.
“You just have to be a little bit more creative, which I didn’t really want to do, like putting some more stuff for sale,” she said.
“I think that’s what’s happening more and more.”
As for the future, she says she might want to open a restaurant.