A few last words (I hope) about McNally-Robinson

Here’s a nice apple-art cappuccino for ya before the venting starts anew:

And now back to this situation. I’ve been getting a fair number of responses (not all posted because I am only posting comments with what appear to be valid email addresses- you know who I am; I want to at least trust that I can know who you are) to my rant about McNally Robinson, and so I think the issue and my stand on it merits some qualification. I want mostly that readers understand why I’m angry, and what I’m not angry about.

First, I’m sad that McNally-Robinson is closing. This does not mean that I don’t recognise their right to run a business as they see fit. By the same token I’m not angry at Clover Equipment for selling their company to Starbucks, which will, from now on and forever, not sell Clovers to any independent coffeehouse, ever ever. It sucks, it makes me sad and angry, but that doesn’t mean I’m claiming, as one commenter said, that M-R shouldn’t be allowed to do what they want to do to make money. That’s not the point. This isn’t about a company being avaricious; ALL companies exist, at least in part, to make money.

The reason I’m so upset is about how this closing is being sold to us, and the recurring theme in it is, “tough shit, Calgary, this is all YOUR FAULT.” It’s our fault because of the increased costs of doing business here; it’s our fault because the value of M-R’s building was too much for them to resist selling; it’s our fault because rents are too high (and as you can read in earlier comments, Balboa was going to charge M-R $1 million a year), and it’s our fault because our downtown is, as one of my commenters put it, “a ghost town after 6pm.” Actually he didn’t even stipulate “downtown” but you get it.

The problem with all of these excuses, aside from being monstrously and (to me) unforgivably insulting, is that none hold up, unless you just accept the fact that M-R are hypocritical, liars, or both.

First, yes, business costs are high. Labour costs are high. But they’re high in Saskatoon, high in Toronto, and really, really, REALLY high in NYC. This has to be put into perspective.

Second, yes, you made a killing on the sale of your building. Why not be frank about this? You want us to feel sorry for you? We feel sorry for your employees. We feel sorry for ourselves for the loss of a cultural institution here. Do you really expect anybody to feel sorry for you? Well, yes, apparently, given the tone of letters to the editor and whatnot- you’re being depicted as a poor independent business chased from downtown. You aren’t and you weren’t. Stop misrepresenting yourselves.

Third, rents are too high?! This is laughable- you OWNED your building, you SOLD it for a huge profit and now you’re claiming there was something unbearable in the lease terms? Didn’t you discuss this with your new landlord? Did Balboa not expect you’d stay? I’d say it’s shocking that you expect the public to believe this pity party, but again, your PR efforts have paid off. All I’ve heard is “poor M-R, rents are too high for businesses like them to survive.” Amazing spin job there. Shameful, but impressive.

Finally, the “business was slow at night.” You had at your fingertips 120,000 downtown workers every weekday, the biggest downtown workforce, per capita, of any city in North America. You were also mere steps from two huge hotels, the  Hyatt and the Marriot, which house hundreds of potential customers every night of the week. These people shop, eat, and after work pack downtown bars and restaurants. Downtown is not a “ghost town” any more and the outstanding success of theatre and restaurants downtown are testament to this- hell, I commented earlier on how Caffe Artigiano is packing them in on Saturdays and Sundays, and they’re not even on Stephen Ave. Holt-Renfrew is expanding. Fashion Central will be open in 2009. We’ll soon see ground broken a new Eau Claire Market with hundreds of new housing units to accompany the thousands in the Beltline under construction right now. I never saw M-R less than brisk, sometimes incredibly busy, on weekends. If evening traffic was so bad, why not close at 6? And for that matter, if the core sucked so much for you, why not do what you did in Winnipeg and move out of it but to another location in Calgary? You could have adapted. You chose not to.

I’m still angry. I’m angry not only because my favourite bookstore (well, my former favourite bookstore) is closing. I’m angry because of how the owners and the store’s reps, like that manager interviewed in last week’s Fast Forward, keep bashing Calgary and Calgarians with this “you didn’t support us, so we can’t afford to stay” nonsense. Tell the damn truth. You closed the Calgary store because it’s the one you COULD sell off, and at a huge profit, so that you could open new stores elsewhere, in Winnipeg and Toronto and New York City. Godspeed, there, but for the Christ’s sake STOP INSULTING US.