With the news that Target is closing all of its stores in Canada, thousands of people are out of work and worried about what they are going to do for their next jobs. I confess that I didn't shop at Target very often. I found their prices were not that great and it annoyed me that the shelves were empty more often than not. Personally, I was also uncomfortable with the grocery section in Target. Why do we need to buy food with our pajamas and spoons? Upon walking into a Canadian Target for the first time, I sort of shrugged and thought to myself: "It still looks like Zellers with slightly nicer stuff for more money." There has been a lot of talk online locally about what should go in the soon-to-be-empty location at Pine Centre and here is my vote: Safeway or a movie theatre.
Safeway in Prince George closed its location here a very long time ago and was located where Princess Auto is currently housed and, at the time, the Safeway was looking a little dingy and needed serious refurbishing. So it closed its doors instead and turned into a large auto, man-store that makes me feel anxious if I have to walk inside for any reason. I think that Prince George misses Safeway. I miss getting Air Miles with my weekly grocery shop and on the second Tuesday of every month (from what I remember) you could either get double Air Miles or 10 per cent off of your grocery bill. We, being cheap, always picked the 10 per cent off. I am a regular Overwaitea, I mean Save-On Foods, shopper and I have nothing against our local store. I just miss Safeway and cheap Tuesdays.
I have mentioned in another column that I of the firm opinion that a town this size should have more than one movie theatre. Even given the rise of the home theatre and the collapse of the movie rental industry, people still want to go on a dinner and a movie date. We would have more movie options and perhaps even be able to find a seat at a popular show on Cheap(er) Tuesdays. With more movies being played in town, more people would go out to catch a flick and would eat dinner out thus spending more money in the community helping our local economy. Really the best idea would be to open a Safeway and a movie theatre so I would be able to maximize my cheap Tuesdays.
There is one dream that I have for Prince George and I think that it would be perfect for the Target location or perhaps in Box Store City up in College Heights: The Container Store.
The Container Store, for those of you not in the know, is a large and wonderful American box store filled with, you guessed it, containers! I have browsed around their website and spent hours coveting the many containers, boxes and storage solutions that I want. I have had one opportunity in my life thus far to visit a Container Store in person but, unfortunately to me, I was out-voted on a family trip to Seattle.
I discovered, not for the first time, that container shopping is not high on the list for many people other than myself and certainly is not high on my family's list of things to do while you are in Seattle. Tragic, really. All of those containers just waiting for me to buy them so I can bring them home and put them to use in my very disorganized house. So sad.
Prince George, what is your vote for the Target location?
