TORONTO — December is typically the busiest time of year for many businesses, especially malls and retailers that rely on last-minute holiday shoppers to keep them afloat in the slow months of the new year.
But as retail restrictions in every province limit shopping to various degrees, shoppers are rapidly shifting online. With two weeks left before Christmas, many Ontario businesses say the province’s lockdown measures, which are among the strictest in the country, are putting their livelihoods in jeopardy.
For Toronto clothing store owner Irina Rapaport, her December sales are a fraction of the norm. She says that’s because it’s impossible for her to do curb-side sales because customers can’t try on clothes.
“It’s terrible, there is nothing coming in. Zero,” Rapaport told CTV News.
Lockdown measures have meant that non-essential businesses are closed in Toronto and Peel Region, with shopping limited to online and curb-side pickup. Those same lockdown measures are being extended to the York Region and Windsor-Essex as of Monday. However, big box stores that sell non-essential items alongside groceries, such as Costco and Walmart, are allowed to stay open.
Small businesses have spoken out about this discrepancy, saying it unfairly targets independent retailers while funnelling customers into large corporately owned stores that have already seen sales skyrocket during the pandemic.
Hudson’s Bay Co. on Thursday asked an Ontario court to suspend these restrictions. In a judicial review, the company called the restrictions “unreasonable” and called for a solution that doesn’t jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of workers.
Sam Nirenberg, owner of Body Blue, a denim store in Toronto’s Riverdale neighbourhood, said December sales usually carry his business through the next couple months.
“It’s very stressful,” Nirenberg said. “We’re doing everything we can to get people to digitally shop at our store, but it’s not the same clientele.”
With Christmas around the corner, he said his business is feeling pinched. They used to have 19 staff on hand, but they’ve had to cut down to four.
“This year it’s going to be very difficult,” he said.
Nirenberg expressed frustration over the province’s decision to keep large retailers open, calling the policy “ridiculous.”
“It’s very unfair that the big box stores are allowed to be open and no one is socially distancing there, and we can’t be open. It doesn’t make sense to us,” he said.
Keiley Routledge runs the nearby Small Wonders Pets shop and said she’s behind lockdown measures if they’re going to bring down cases.
“But clearly it’s not happening, and the big box stores are opened unfettered where people can crowd without security, without hand sanitizing,” Routledge said.
“Basically we’re being punished for being a negligible part of the problem.”
Other provinces have taken similar but generally looser measures to limit shopping. In Alberta, malls and retailers will need to cut capacity to 15 per cent by Sunday. Quebec has similarly put tighter limits on store capacities. Manitoba has restricted shopping to essential items only, a list that includes groceries, baby items, winter clothing, pet supplies and tools. British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Newfoundland are allowing all retailers to remain open, though safety protocols such as masks and hand sanitizing are in place.
The tighter the measures, the more business could see their bottom line affected, says Karl Littler, senior vice-president of the Retail Council of Canada.
“This pandemic has become the lump of coal for them because obviously it’s such a central part of the year,” he said.
