[URBAN NOTE] NOW Toronto on the last video stores of the city

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In NOW Toronto, Aidan Johnston looks at how the last video rental stores are doing.

In stark contrast to the superfluous openings of weed dispensaries in Toronto, when a video store disappears from the streetscape, it’s deeply mourned. Of course, as sad as we sometimes get, it doesn’t come as a surprise. Despite overcoming the big-box boom of the 2000s, independent video stores now face history’s largest shift in the home movie market, and the most-embraced home entertainment feature since the television: on-demand streaming.

“There were at one time 75,000 video stores in North America; we’re down to about 1200 left,” Howard Levman informs me, just three weeks after his flagship location of Queen Video at Spadina closed. “Queen reached that threshold where there’s just not enough business.”

Levman first opened his venerable store 35 years ago, with two more locations following suit. A College location closed in 2014, but the Bloor location in the Annex remains just a few blocks away from the equally beloved Suspect Video (which will sadly shutter at the end of this year). So what’s still working at the remaining store?

“Well, the Bloor store was busier,” he says. “It had a lower break-even point, so it was able to last longer in a shrinking industry. Our customers that are left, most of them aren't internet savvy and they don't download anything.”

But at a time when you can rent new releases on your iPad or start an entire series of television with one indifferent click, aren't people drawn to the back catalogue of classics on offer at local video stores that services like Netflix and Shomi are sorely lacking? The answer is no.