Inglewood businesses blame bad weather for slow sales

Some shop owners in Inglewood say business is way down because of the cold winterweather this year and they are worried about their future.

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Many businesses are still recovering from the big hit they took after June's flood and nowsay nasty winter weather has kept people from walking and shopping as they usually would.

"Having a much slower time in Inglewood over the last six months, almost eight months I guess.It just has been quite a whammy for us," said Riva Mackie, who owns Riva's Eco Store on Ninth Avenue S.E.

She and her husband have been running the storefor almost seven years, but they aredebating whether to walk awayafter losing more than $100,000in inventory in last year's flood and seeing a dropof 30 per cent in sales this winter.

"We're trying to think about how to restructure and pull it together because we really don't want to go away," said Mackie, adding they are having trouble paying rent.

'It's too cold to walk'

Other Inglewood business owners also say they are struggling this winter.Charmaine Sanderson, who runs a consignment store,says this has been the worse winter she has seenfor sales.

"Nobody is coming down to Inglewood, there's nobodywalking," she said."It's too cold to walk so we haven't had anyone come into the store."

Inglewood businesses aren't the only ones suffering because of the cold.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) says it's hearing from stores all over the city that are barely holding on.

"Small businesses are really hit hard when the weather is in this deep-freeze mode," said CFIB spokesperson Amber Ruddy.

According to meteorologists, this winterhas been one of the coldest inroughly 30 years.

The CFIB recommends shoppers who want to help can head to shopsmallbiz.ca where shoppers can put in a postal code andsee deals and promotions for small businesses nearby.