Real shame

Downtown. Dec. 17, 2024.
The windows are covered in plywood. Someone has sprayed the boards with black spray paint—pictures of ugly beings and foul language.
That one with a caricature of a leering devil used to be the florist, with lovely plants gracing the sidewalk in front. Instead of a beautiful window full of fashionable dresses and boots of what used to be a family clothing store, there are boards plastered with obscenities.
Used condoms and garbage litter the sidewalks. Block after block it’s all you see: profanity and trash. There still are a few lights on, those who have managed to hang on, but mostly it is a tragic tale—a tale that started with a few who maligned the merchants.
Not enough sales, prices too high, terrible hours, no selection. It began with one person and mushroomed from there. Before you could blink an eye, social media was hopping with posts from anyone with a beef. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, right?
There was more and more bashing of merchants on main street. Pretty soon, almost everyone maligned them and took their business elsewhere because obviously they could—and should! The few people left who didn’t hold those opinions just weren’t enough.
After a while, the merchants gave up. Why stay open when everybody hates you and refuses to shop at your store. It didn’t matter that you made running this small business your life’s work, as did your father before you. It didn’t matter that you worked long and hard to make sure your business was as good as possible.
It didn’t matter that you provided jobs for half-a-dozen people. It didn’t matter that business property taxes were a vital part of the financial picture for your town. It didn’t matter that you faithfully donated merchandise to support a countless number of causes, sports teams, groups, and fundraisers over the years.
Nor did it matter that you were a good citizen of this town and you volunteered at the museum or the hospital or the annual Christmas dinner.
What did matter was that you didn’t deeply discount merchandise, bring in stock that might or might not sell, stay open until midnight, or kow-tow to customers who stopped in once a year to shop the bargain racks.
There was a time when merchants held their heads high—proud to be businessmen or women in this community and proud to support it by serving on a board, coaching a soccer team, or by donating merchandise.
Friends and neighbours stopped by weekly; sometimes to shop, sometimes just to say hi. They were, after all, friends and neighbours.
They’d stomp their feet beside you when you were watching a hockey game. The name of your business was on the back of the kids’ hockey jerseys—a sight to fill any shopkeeper with pride.
Not anymore.
One by one, the merchants closed up shop. They shut the doors and boarded up the windows. Now all that’s left are banks and empty buildings.
It’s a dumping ground, a graveyard. It’s the sad, sad story of what happens when townspeople don’t value their local merchants and publicly disparage them.
It’s a damn shame.