Raise the Hammer

Just some random thoughts on others' comments/question:

* What passes for destination shopping in this city, is all at Limeridge Mall.

* Brands have tried to set up shop at Jackson Square: most recently Yves Rocher left its prime mall spot near the King & James entrance. They weren't making money.

* To be more than blunt about it, if you want to encourage the elderly (or anyone else) to spend their commercial and leisure time in the core, you need to get rid of the peep show, the bingo, the gold selling/cash shops, and that shop on King E where all the wanna-be thugs hang out smoking pot. That's a relentless stream of threat and erosive behaviour that no one wants to deal with.

* I, too, remember the vibrancy of the James to Ferguson corridor along King back in the 80s - shops everywhere, and all doing business. I miss Book Villa mightily at times. But we all got caught up in malls, then big box stores, then Wal-Mart, and those cancers ate away at small-scale commercial ventures, then the urban rot set in.

* If you want people to spend their commercial time in Jackson Square, try installing businesses that actually stay open past 6 p.m. I went to the mall around 7 on Thursday evening, and the only things open were Dollarama and the LCBO. That's not a particularly encouraging set of options for a leisurely mall stroll. Grand & Toy closes even earlier, right when folks are leaving their office jobs. That makes no sense at all.

* We do have corridors of pubs: Most notably Hess Village and Augusta St - King William had a stretch that was bar-oriented, but it got run-down and seedy and seemed to involve a lot of thug-oriented knife-fights. Is that still the case, or have those bars moved out? Hess is also a less than attractive option since the incursion of dance clubs.

* Augusta St does a one-day mini-festival every year now - music, food, chili cook-off - maybe if more areas were encouraged to do something similar, as the Art Crawls do, and Locke St has, there'd be more incentive for folks to come.

* Part of the problem with downtown has always been parking - it's not that easy to get. Who wants to stop and shop, or stop and eat, when the first impression on passing through the core is that there's no parking?