Archive 1997-2016
Merchants on the Sparks Street Mall feel their Christmas will be a little merrier this year.
For the first time in more than a decade, the Sparks Street Mall has decorations and merchants hope they can cash in on the holiday atmosphere.
Sam Elsaadi, of La Mode Hair Studio on Sparks Street, says it’s about time something was done to attract potential customers to the street.
By Christa Delaney
The Ontario Lottery Corporation’s decision to limit individual bets on the Sport Select lottery is getting mixed reactions from Centretown lottery retailers.
Putting a ceiling on bets has lowered lottery profits for some corner store owners like Ali Karimi, owner of the Zesty Market on Elgin Street.
A Centretown business association says new parking meters installed along Bank Street may eventually drive customers away because of increased parking enforcement.
“We’re spending tens of thousands of dollars promoting parking while at the same time we have this overzealousness on the part of the enforcement,” says Gerry LePage, executive director of the Bank Street Promenade, a local merchants’ association.
The current Asian economic crisis has disturbed trade with most countries visited by Team Canada trade missions and has raised questions about the missions’ effectiveness, according to one of the North-South Institute’s top researchers.
Ted Paterson, director of finance and special projects at the North-South Institute in the Byward Market, says many of the deals signed by businesses accompanying Prime Minister Jean Chrétien during the Team Canada missions to Asia in the past four years could be in jeopardy.